Kick-Out!! Wrestling

Black History Month - February 6-9

2012-02-09T16:59:00.000-05:00

Apologies for totally falling behind on this!

February 6 - D'Lo Brown
I will never get why D'Lo wasn't a massive star. The guy was rock solid in the ring, had a unique look and was very charismatic. His last (and very brief) run with WWE was especially heartbreaking because I thought it would turn into something, but alas, it was not to be. D'Lo will go down in history as one of the biggest missed opportunities of the Attitude Era, but he could've been so much more. And the Lo Down was badass.

February 7 - "Big Cat" Ernie Ladd
Ernie Ladd was one of the first to make it big in both real sports and professional wrestling and as far as I know, is one of the very few men to be a Hall of Famer in both sports ("sports"). William Perry is in WWE's celebrity wing, but I can't think of anyone else that's a Hall of Famer for a football team (in Ladd's case, the Chargers) and WWE's wrestling-specific Hall of Fame.

February 8 - Shelton Benjamin
Speaking of missed opportunities. Shelton obviously had limitations in WWE, but there are more than a handful of people who were less talented overall that made it further than Benjamin did. In a different era, a guy like Benjamin strikes me as one of those guys that would've bounced between promotions and improved with each new journey. At age 36, I don't know if we'll ever see Shelton back in a WWE ring, but I wouldn't complain.

February 9 - Booker T
Booker T, on the other hand, is a bona fide success story. In an industry not known for being the most racially progressive, Booker shattered barriers and succeeded in spite of them. Whether it was tag team wrestling, technical showcases in the TV Title division, persevering through something as ridiculous as GI Bro, and becoming a 100% legitimate World Champion (six times, no less), Booker did it all. And since his semi-retirement, Booker has transitioned into the role of color commentator, where he's the most refreshing voice since Tazz. And no, I will not hear a bad word about Booker's commentary, ever.

WWE Raw - February 6, 2012

2012-02-07T14:24:00.000-05:00

Coming off a red hot Raw last week, could WWE keep the momentum going for the first Raw of February?

Triple H started things off to tell us that John Laurinaitis was totally gonna get fired, but that damn Undertaker gave him just enough time to slip out and prepare a PowerPoint presentation to the Board of Directors in order to save his job at the eleventh hour. Now that, my friend, is how you play office politics! Of course, it is a bit funny that Triple H dropped everything to appear on WWE for the first time since TLC to fire him, only to completely shrug it off and shift gears a week later, but I think that just says more about what a terrible COO he is.

The Game gave us a flimsy excuse about not wanting to fight Taker again at WrestleMania because he chooses to remember The Undertaker as a dominant, awe-inspiring force, not the guy who couldn't walk out of the arena last year. I would be inclined to go along with this if someone would ever call Triple H out on his bullshit, which I don't expect to happen, so I will.

Triple H, you lost that match last year, buddy. Sure, The Undertaker had to be carried out, but it was also a few months after he was left in a vegetative state and when he tried to return, he was literally buried alive. You come back from that, jerkface. What I'd love to see here is The Undertaker tell us that on top of looking to redeem himself for that, he knows Triple H's real reason for ducking out is that he also doesn't have it anymore. Let's see The Undertaker question if Triple H can still go, because I guaran-goddamn-tee The Undertaker is still more believable as a bad ass than Triple H ever was.

Big Show vs. Daniel Bryan was a really fun opening match. These two have an interesting bizzaro David & Goliath chemistry that works well and Bryan's smug condescending asshole shtick is perfect for it. Quitting the match because Big Show knowingly stopped himself this time from bowling over poor AJ (complete with HeelBrand™ Neckbrace) is the kind of stuff I love. He's a dick, sure, but he has a point. Even if Big Show was just more aware of AJ being around this time, who hasn't been there when the alpha male complex comes out? Bryan's playing the role obscenely well, is obviously consistently great in the ring and Big Show has been incredibly underrated over the last three years, so let's keep this going.

John Cena waving the green flag at the Daytona 500 is kind of a big deal, isn't it?

David Otunga Tebowing for boos? Brilliant. Sheamus kicking Otunga's ass for cheers? Also brilliant! I liked this little segment and I'm really starting to come around on Otunga. His mic work has dramatically improved and he showed some intensity in this match despite it being a glorified squash. Keep it up, Esquire.

Did WWE really use a "Did You Know" to brag about beating NBC in the ratings last Monday? The same NBC that's been tying with Univision? C'mon WWE, there's promotion and then there's just kicking a guy when he's down.

Chris Jericho basically admitted that his hype videos and various appearances before the Rumble were just to screw with us, "I trolled you." I was half expecting a Rick Astley video to pop up in the middle of the promo. Jericho finally told us his motivation for coming back, he's tired of guys ripping him off. The Miz took his style, Kofi Kingston took his moves, R-Truth stole his catchphrase, Dolph Ziggler stole his very progressive idea for a female business partner, and CM Punk stole "Best in the World." They're all wannabes, you're all wannabes, we're all wannabes, if you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends.

Naturally, CM Punk interrupted and instead of using his pipe bomb, he merely dropped the mic and walked away, Jericho style. This part honestly fell a bit flat for me through no fault of Jericho or Punk, just because the silent response is becoming far too frequent of a crutch for WWE storytelling. It would've been powerful stuff had The Undertaker not ended Raw with it last week and Triple H not done it last year. Plus, there's the usual billion times a year two guys have a stare down and look at the WrestleMania sign. I liked Punk doing it though, it was a nice way of owning Jericho's accusations and responding with "while you've been playing rock star, I've been WWE Champion."

Randy Orton & The Great Khali vs. Wade Barrett & Cody Rhodes was quite bizarre thanks to the Orton/Khali pairing and the fact that it's rare to see a team where Khali is the better wrestler... BOOM! Harmless main event style tag match with the good guys predictably picking up the win and Orton predictably looking like the only person that matters. Cody and Wade make a great team though and I'd like to see them shake up the tag division somewhere down the line.

8-Diva Tag Match was typical throwaway nonsense. I realize the point is often to get as many Divas on screen as possible, but if they really cared about storytelling here, they would've just had Beth Phoenix come to the ring and do the promo she taped backstage with some added flare. Her inevitable battle with Kharma is the only thing this dying division has going for it, so the sooner we can dive in, the better. Everything else is just filler.

Hey, Shawn Michaels is going to be on Raw next week! He's either going to weigh in on The Undertaker/Triple H situation or pass the torch to Brodus Clay.

The Main Event was very Attitude Era inspired with CM Punk, Chris Jericho, R-Truth, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz and Kofi Kingston, the six participants in the Raw Elimination Chamber, all battled each other in a Six-Pack Challenge. I'm sure someone out there is bitching about them "giving away" the main event of a PPV, but this was obviously drastically different than what we'll see in two weeks.

I liked that they kept Jericho and Punk separate just enough to keep it interesting and create a great story with Jericho's victory (and mocking of Punk), but it's going to be much more difficult at the Elimination Chamber. My guess (and keep in mind, I'm pulling this right out of my ass) is Jericho wins the WWE Title in the Chamber on Punk's quest becomes winning it back at Mania and having to prove he's not a Jericho wannabe.

Oh and Kane threatened Eve backstage to close the show, officially killing any remaining slivers of coolness this story had. We've gone from awesomely bad horror movie to Lifetime original movie.

After last week's A+ show, this week was definitely disappointing. Not terrible or anything but not the show I was hoping for and that vibe killer at the end of the show really didn't help. Next week should be better with last minute Chamber hype and then we're officially-officially on the Road to WrestleMania.

Black History Month - February 3-5

2012-02-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

Fell behind a little bit, let's catch up!

February 3 - Jazz
I always really liked Jazz, even during her sporadic run in ECW's later days. Anyone who can create a memorable moment with Jason (remember that guy?) has some special qualities. She had a good run in WWE as well, for an unconventional (i.e. actually a wrestler) Diva. She also had the hurdle of being a double minority and it's no surprise they let her go before her Diva shelf life expired, but I always felt she was the most underrated female wrestler in the last decade.

February 4 - Tony Atlas
Mr. USA is an example of wrestling's best and worst qualities. Winning the WWE Tag Team Titles with Rocky Johnson and becoming the first African-American tag team to win the belts was a huge feel good story. Unfortunately, Tony would later fall onto the path of wrestling tragedy, I still remember True Life: I'm a Pro Wrestler with Tony recalling the story of "waking up in a crack house with four people on top of me." Then when Tony began to turn things around, he came back to WWE under the Saba Simba gimmick, which is pretty much the most racist thing I've seen in my 25 years of watching.

Luckily, Atlas got to redeem his WWE career with his hilarious stint on ECW as the announcer for the Abraham Washington Show (remember that?) and of course, managing Mark Henry's ECW Championship run. I like to think Mark Henry wouldn't be as awesome as he is now without some help from Mr. USA.

February 5 - Maven
I'm really not sure why Maven never took off in WWE. Sure, he came in completely untrained, but that's never stopped them before. The first Tough Enough winner was a story that could write itself and what he lacked in the ring, Maven more than made up for it in charisma. I always enjoyed his work, and loved when he turned heel near the end of his run, I thought it would've been his star-making moment.

It seems Maven has done well for himself post-WWE though, still think WWE missed the boat though, especially with this:

Wrestling Revolution trailer

2012-02-05T10:06:00.000-05:00

Jeff Katz released the trailer for Wrestling Revolution this weekend and so far it looks like a wrestling show. I don't think a one minute trailer can properly showcase the "revolution" aspect of the project, but it was a nice way to see all the characters involved.

Looking forward to more.

Programming note: I'm a little behind on my Black History Month series due to a busy weekend, so a few double posts will be coming soon.

WWE developing cruiserweight brand?

2012-02-02T19:34:00.001-05:00

I hesitate to talk about rumors, but since it's not a potential spoiler and doesn't ruin anyone's career, let's talk about rumors! According to the usual suspects (the dirtsheets, not Keyser Soze), WWE is developing a show based entirely around cruiserweight wrestlers for the WWE Network.

In the past, I've expressed a dislike for the Cruiserweight Championship since it puts the wrestlers in the dreaded "cruiserweight box," as Jericho described it in his first book. However, I think if WWE is willing to import some outside talent and base an entire show around people who aren't or wouldn't get a fair shake on the main roster, it could be a pretty cool show. I don't think it has to be a new or completely separate brand necessarily, just think of it like the first hour of Nitro getting its own show.

This is really where the WWE Network shines. I still don't think we should be getting our hopes up for 24 hours of pure wrasslin with new matches making up the bulk of the programming and I definitely suspect reruns of Homeboys in Outer Space will eventually find their way into the programming block, but if they move forward with this, the Network could really take off.

Black History Month - February 2

2012-02-02T17:41:00.001-05:00

February 2 - New Jack
Paul Heyman has a reputation for hiding someone's weaknesses and highlighting their strengths and there's perhaps no greater example of it than New Jack. New Jack is not a good wrestler. Please don't tell him I said that, I don't need a Sega Saturn bashed over my head, but despite that, New Jack became one of the most beloved characters of the original ECW.

If there's one thing that made the character work the most, it's that it felt real. I really felt like New Jack was a borderline crazy person who would fuck you up just for looking at him wrong. Emerging at the height of gangsta rap, New Jack had a definite coolness about him too, it fit the era so well. The constant loop of "Natural Born Killaz" during his matches is something I hadn't seen in wrestling before or since, and perhaps for good reason, but for New Jack's constant assaults on the Dudley Boyz, it worked.

Black History Month - February 1

2012-02-01T19:51:00.000-05:00

Happy Black History Month! After having a lot of fun with the Royal Rumble Top 30, I wanted to keep the daily feature going throughout February and celebrate the greatest, most memorable and legendary black wrestlers throughout history. This is not an "all-time" list, no one is being ranked or anything like that, just a fun collection of 29 great entertainers.

February 1 - Bobo Brazil
I can't start the list with anyone else, Bobo Brazil is often referred to as the Jackie Robinson of professional wrestling. Despite fears that booking Brazil against white wrestlers would lead to race riots in the arena, he persevered through the adversity and eventually won several titles throughout the United States. As a lifelong good guy, he even challenged Bruno Sammartino on several occasions and in some arenas, even had the crowd in his favor, which was practically unheard of for any Sammartino challenger.

Along with his manager, James Dudley, Brazil was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1994.

Oh, and he had the greatest finisher name ever, "Coco Butt," his patented headbutt.

The Complete Royal Rumble Top 30

2012-02-01T17:48:00.002-05:00

And for those of you who just want to read the list without all those pesky words and scrolling down, here's the complete Royal Rumble Top 30:

Triple H vs. Cactus Jack - 2000
John Cena vs. Umaga - 2007
Royal Rumble - 1992
Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit - 2003
The Hardy Boyz vs. The Dudley Boyz - 2000
Royal Rumble - 2001
Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels - 2003
John Cena vs. Smarks - 2008
Ax vs. Smash - 1989
Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit - 2001
Christian vs. Ezekiel Jackson - 2010
Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon - 1993
Randy Orton vs. Jeff Hardy - 2008
Mr. Kennedy vs. Batista - 2007
Jumping Bomb Angels vs. Glamour Girls - 1988
Royal Rumble - 2004
Shawn Michaels vs. The World - 2010
The Rock vs. Chris Jericho - 2002
Rockers vs. Orient Express - 1991
Royal Rumble - 1998
Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels - 2004
The Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio - 2010
Dolph Ziggler vs. Edge - 2011
Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty - 1993
Diesel vs. Bret Hart - 1995
Royal Rumble - 2011
Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker - 2007
Bret Hart vs. Lex Luger - 1994
The Rock vs. Mankind - 1999
Steve Austin vs. Vader, The Undertaker, Bret Hart, referees and Gorilla Monsoon - 1997

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 31

2012-01-31T13:40:00.000-05:00

And here we go:

1. Cactus Jack vs. Triple H - 2000
Depending on when you ask me, I may tell you that the 2000 Royal Rumble is my favorite non-WrestleMania PPV in WWE history. Depending on when you ask me, and lunar alignment, I may tell you that Cactus Jack vs. Triple H is my favorite match of all-time. At this particular moment in time, probably not, but it's very likely that it will always hold a place in my top 10.

I've never been a huge fan of Triple H, but I did feel genuinely bad for the guy in the fall of 1999 when it looked like he was going to bomb as WWE Champion. Winning the belt the night after, rather than at SummerSlam was wonky, his run felt forced, he lost the belt to Vince McMahon (remember that?) and then he dropped the title to the Big Show not long after regaining it.

But things turned around in 2000. Thanks to his storyline with Stephanie McMahon and a feud with a rejuvenated Mick Foley (who was on his way to "retirement"), things started to come together for Triple H. Without this match, I don't know if HHH would've been solidified as he was. Of course his real marriage to Stephanie would've helped regardless, but I don't think the crowd would've bought it without his run with Foley.

And if you need me to actually describe the match to you, then you just need to re-watch the match. It's the absolute best of "main event style" and is an instant add to either man's DVD sets. Oh yeah, there's a Pedigree in thumbtacks too.

WWE Raw - January 30, 2012

2012-01-31T08:12:00.001-05:00

What a difference the Road to WrestleMania makes.

Executive Vice President of Talent Relations, Interim General Manager of Raw and Assistant to the Regional Manager, Mr. John Laurinaitis, kicked things off to tell us what a fun and exciting show we had in store for us, featuring matches like Daniel Bryan vs. CM Punk (!!!) and Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler. And you're really going to boo this guy? He also announced a very impressive line-up for Raw's Elimination Chamber, with CM Punk defending the WWE Championship against The Miz, R-Truth, Kofi Kingston (handstands = title shots), Dolph Ziggler and Chris Jericho. That should be a hell of a match.

I assume Bryan will have to defend the World Title in the Chamber as well, which is kind of a bummer, I liked the set-up last year where the guy who wouldn't be defending his title against the Rumble winner didn't have to get in the Chamber and his brand's match was to determine its #1 contender. I realize that can get complicated when the Rumble winner wants to tease which brand he's going to, but two title matches in Chambers can be a bit exhausting.

Anyhoo, CM Punk interrupted Johnny Ace, singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye," and I still wonder if WWE has to pay a royalty check to Paul Leka's estate every time they do this. These two argued about who owed who an apology and luckily, Daniel Bryan made the save and dropped a pipe bomb of his own, "no one cares about your little soap opera." Ouch.

Punk and Bryan traded barbs while remaining somewhat friendly with each other, although Punk couldn't resist "what do you eat?" when Bryan bragged about not eating meat. C'mon Danny, the proper comeback to that is always "your mom!"

Sheamus made his way to the ring to wish both Punk and Bryan could luck on the Road to WrestleMania and wished Laurinaitis well in his future endeavors. The more I think about it, the more excited I get for this guy as the poster boy for WWE. I don't know if he'll ever have the crossover appeal of The Rock or even John Cena, but he's unique enough that he could still become a household name based on appearance alone. I look forward to the day when "Sheamus white" is sold in the paint department of Home Depot.

Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler was our opening contest and was just a hell of a match. I also dug the constant shifting from commentary to Josh Mathews, who was in a "luxury skybox" with Wade Barrett. Since they did a guest commentary bit later in the night, they tried something different here and it worked well. Not something they should try with everyone, but Barrett's good enough to pull it off. I'm a little iffy on them running Orton vs. Barrett on Smackdown though, seems too soon. Hopefully there will be some shenanigans, maybe Orton's not quite 100% and Barrett can put him back on the shelf until WrestleMania? This feud has legs and I can't see either guy doing anything more interesting in the next two months.

As for this match though, mucho kudos to Dolph Ziggler for making Orton look really, really good. I know I give him a ton of shit and Orton's no slouch, but Ziggler definitely brought out the best in him. Though I did see a clown on Yahoo! Sports say Ziggler was "jobbed out" here and that he'll be "overlooked now." Oh for fuck's sake. I'm trying to be the kinder, gentler Razor in 2012 and not worrying as much about what people on the internet say, but come on. Ziggler has quietly become the best wrestler in the World [Wrestling Entertainment] and will certainly be presented as one of the bigger threats in the Raw Chamber match. WWE has enough wishy-washy booking as it is and Ziggler lost a match to a guy who never loses, so what's the problem? Unless we're really at the point where not being in the WWE Title match at WrestleMania constitutes being overlooked? Sigh.

Brodus Clay vs. Tyler Reks was next and while I was somewhat mesmerized by Clay's jiggly thighs and my wife calling him "The Dinosaur Guy," I just don't care. Again, it's a harmless and cute character, but there's nothing here that's going to get Brodus above Santino territory.

There has to come a point where you have to let all that built-up smarkitude go and you just give WWE credit. Normally, I'd say something like "if four years ago, I told you CM Punk and Daniel Bryan would be main eventing Raw in a WWE vs. World Champion match, would you believe me?" but moments like this have become so common that it's time to just admit that WWE has thrown you a bone, cynical internet wrestling fan. Does that make them immune to criticism? Of course not, but here are two guys that have gone way further up the card than anyone expected when they signed, making the whole "WWE will ruin my ROHero!" thing beyond cliché. It's time for all of us to agree that if WWE drops the ball on Daniel Bryan or CM Punk, it's because they can drop the ball on everyone equally... just ask Mason Ryan.

Rant out of the way, Daniel Bryan vs. CM Punk in a Champion vs. Champion match was the 10pm main event and I think these fellers may just have what it takes to put on an entertaining wrestling match. They got enough time, the match was balanced well and the crowd was into it, don't know what else you'd want out of a free-TV main event. Oh, how about Chris Jericho? Yes, looks like "the end of the world as you know it," may just mean "the end of the Best in the World" as Jericho set his sights on the WWE Champion. Bryan stole another win since Jericho attacked him first to get to Punk, but the bigger story here is the fact that these two are going to blow the roof off Miami. I have a feeling Rock & Cena will have a couple tough acts to follow.

Mike Tyson was announced as the next inductee into the Celebrity Wing of the Hall of Fame and I'm legitimately shocked that people still don't understand what the purpose of the Celebrity Wing is... it's to get ESPN and TMZ to talk about WWE and have a fun moment with a celebrity at WrestleMania. Not unlike every WrestleMania, ever.

I was also a little surprised to see people furious about Tyson due to his criminal past. I totally understand a continued dislike of Tyson over his 1992 rape conviction, some crimes are unforgivable... but it is weird for a section of wrestling fans to get upset about it now when he's been featured prominently in WWE programming as recently as 2009 and had a four-month storyline in 1998. I'm not here to delve deep into the societal questions of when, or if, a debt to society has truly be paid, but I just found the reaction surprising.

But don't worry, I have it on good authority Mr. Dream will take Tyson's Hall of Fame spot in three years.

Moving along, Kofi Kingston vs. The Miz was an Elimination Chamber preview match and wound up being quite good. With Kofi's big Rumble moment and impressive performance in this match, I can't help but hope big things are on the horizon for him. I'd like to see him get new music and get rid of the "I'm pretty sure that's kinda racist" logo on his trunks to freshen up his character though. I'm all for a big Kofi push, even if it means losses for The Miz, which always make me sad.

Beth Phoenix vs. Eve was over in seconds since it was really just a reason for John Cena to save Eve from Kane, but I was actually kind of interested in this. Yeah, Eve is distraught over Ryder, but I like Beth just plowing through people. Surely this has to end with her saying there's no one left for her to beat and then she meets Kharma, right? Speaking of which, apparently Kharma gave birth on New Year's Eve and then made it to the Rumble less than a month later. If that is the case, she is officially tougher than any man in wrestling... except maybe Haku. But seriously, looking that impressive just weeks after having a kid? Kharma is more badass than any of us will ever be.

I knew something was up when the Triple H/John Laurinaitis employee review was closing the show, but I had no idea it would mean the return of The Undertaker!!! I need The Undertaker for my next yearly review, just when the boss is about to criticize or fire me, the lights go off in his office, The Undertaker arrives and whatever he's talking about is instantly forgotten. Talk about letting personal issues cloud your judgment, HHH! There you were, about to fire a guy and you get distracted by some fog and the funeral march? Mitt Romney would've been able to layoff an entire company's workforce and stash the savings in a Swiss bank account in the time it took Taker to get to the ring.

Okay, so it's no surprise the Undertaker vs. Triple H rematch is on for WrestleMania. They've been teasing it since the night after Mania and HHH all but guaranteed it when he claimed he "effectively" ended the streak, which is kinda like saying you retired a quarterback when his final game was a winning appearance in the Super Bowl and you were on the losing team. But hey, that makes a great story, Triple H runs his mouth, The Undertaker comes back to finish the job.

The shoulder pat at the end of the stare-down was interesting though. It says to me that Triple H almost pities The Undertaker, which would certainly be a new direction for his character. There's definitely something there with Triple H trying to get out the match with a "c'mon old man, you don't want to do this," kind of reaction, but I don't want to speculate too much.

Much like when HBK/Undertaker II was teased before WM26, I didn't want to see the match again, but as things were heating up, I got more and more excited, I hope that's the case here. I didn't want to see the match again once Triple H started teasing it, but I was pretty stoked when Taker interrupted last night. Now, the big challenge here is we all know Undertaker is held together by duct tape and magic and Triple H is no Shawn Michaels, but I'm still optimistic. I loved the match last year (though I'm aware that's a divisive opinion) and I think with a year's rest for Taker (and essentially HHH too), they could be another tough act for Cena and Rock to follow.

Maybe WWE should have an off-season and just run shows from January-April and July-September. I've always been skeptical of the idea, but when you see such a dramatic improvement in quality the minute they get on the Road to WrestleMania, it's hard to argue against it. Fantastic Raw from top to bottom.

Royal Rumble 2012

2012-01-30T08:17:00.005-05:00

The Royal Rumble is like pizza, even when it's bad, it's still pretty good... except 1999, that was the CiCi's Pizza of Royal Rumbles. So with another Rumble in the can, was it good, good because it was a Rumble, or the $5 Rumble buffet?

Daniel Bryan vs. Big Show vs. Mark Henry in a triple threat steel cage match for the World Heavyweight Championship (*deep breath*) was our opening contest. I like when they shake things up a bit in the Rumble undercard with a prop-heavy gimmick match like a ladder or cage. It doesn't detract from the Rumble - I'm pretty sure they could do a 6-man Hell in a Cell Inferno Match and people would still buy the show just for the Rumble - and it's always fun to see something different.

As expected though, the cage walls were there for Daniel Bryan to be bounced around like a pinball and the World Champ did not disappoint. Match was a bit short for my tastes, but hey, we had to fit in a Brodus Clay match! Despite its length, I thought the match was exactly what it needed to be and the visual of Big Show lifting a grown ass man with one arm while sitting on top of the cage was crazy. Bryan managed to slip free and retain his title, but can he survive the Elimination Chamber?
Predictions: 1 for 1

The 8-Diva tag was kinda pointless, but I dug the Aqua Teen Diva Force and Tamina's Mad Max look was cool. And yes, Tamina was a noteworthy part of a match for her style alone... that's the Divas division, kids! Beth telling the Bellas to get out of her ring while she mauled Kelly Kelly was a nice touch though.
Predictions: n/a

John Cena vs. Kane is where things really stalled out though. As exciting as it was to see Kane in his new get-up when he returned, it doesn't change the fact that it's Kane. 15 years of Kane, no less. The match was fine until the lame double count-out around the 10-minute mark; I get it, it's the Rumble, but we didn't need another 10 minutes of lameness. Kane and Cena brawled a bit, and Zack Ryder, who was in a wheelchair (WHEEL, WHEEL, WHEEL!) got rolled out to the ring and Tombstoned. Cena, who was a bit late on the daring rescue, got a chokeslam for his troubles.

What bugs me the most is this all could've been done within the context of the Royal Rumble. Perhaps not the Ryder stuff, but Kane and Cena eliminating each other and brawling over the arena? That's almost a staple of the Rumble match at this point and it wouldn't have ended Kane's Rumble streak.
Predictions: 1 for 2

Brodus Clay vs. Drew McIntyre was another colossal waste of time. Why not just put Brodus in the Rumble? The crowd would've went bonkers for it, especially during the comedy portion of the match (more on that in a minute) and Brodus would've got to do something besides the same match we've seen him wrestle five times now.

And honestly, I'm not really digging The Funkasaurus. It's cute, but the Flash Funk/Rikishi hybrid with Ernest Miller's theme music just strikes me as trying way too hard. It doesn't help that Brodus hasn't really shown us any reason why he's so funky, his dancing isn't really dancing so much as shaking (which is kinda how I dance), and he seems like the only person who's not trying to get this thing over. Commentary acts like it's the greatest thing ever, the whole production that is his entrance is absurdly over the top, but Brodus himself is just kinda there and doesn't seem to know what to do. It's kinda like George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.

CM Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler for the WWE Title. Ah, now that's the stuff. These two have had better matches against each other, but that doesn't mean that this one wasn't good. I like the chemistry between these two and if WWE plays their cards right, this rivalry could be this generation's Cena vs. Edge.

In the other story in this match though, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be rooting for, CM Punk or John Laurinaitis? Sure, Johnny Ace came in as a charisma vacuum who looked like a poor choice for the next villainous authority figure, but that hasn't really been the direction the character has taken. Yeah, he can be a jerk, but what boss isn't? At worst, he's flawed, but realizes it. He readily admits mistakes and makes up for them, and even if those make-goods make the situation worse, what average working stiff can't sympathize with that?

Punk, on the other hand, has been a complete prick to Laurinaitis. I know the fantasy since Austin/McMahon has been the opportunity to punch your boss in the face, but McMahon was pure evil. He was the epitome of corporate power in the age of downsizing, Laurinaitis is just the assistant manager at Arby's trying to keep all these damn teenagers on task. How can you sell Beef n' Cheddars when your head cashier keeps yelling at the customers about whatever comes to mind?

My buddy Jason Mann brought up an excellent point that even though Peter was a dick to Bill Lumbergh in Office Space, Lumbergh was also an insufferable douche. There's definitely an element of that though, but I can't help but feel a little sorry for ol' Johnny. Again, McMahon was the big boss, he could do whatever he wanted, but Ace's entire middle-management existence hinges on a performance review from the star of The Chaperone. Laurinaitis isn't Lumbergh, he's Michael Bolton, stuck in a shit job and just trying to keep his head above water.

And I haven't figured out who Milton is in this analogy yet, but when I do, it's going to make an awesome article.
Predictions: 2 for 3

Royal Rumble time! Always a tough match to write about, so I'm going to start with some general thoughts on the match, then break it down by characters and stories that stood out.

Overall, I thought the match was much better paced than in the last two years but there was definitely a lull in the middle. I don't think that's particularly out of the ordinary, especially looking back at some of the older Rumbles, but since we've been conditioned to expect a main event winner, entries like Epico, Primo and Jey Uso really kill the momentum. Perhaps WWE should throw a curveball one year and have a total fluke Rumble victory? Not saying Primo should win the Rumble, but something a bit unexpected compared to what we're used to. This would've been the year to do it though since Cena vs. The Rock is going to sell the show regardless of what the title matches are.

That's probably my biggest, and really only, gripe with this year's match is it really showcased how thin the roster is right now. Obviously Alberto Del Rio, Christian, Evan Bourne, Rey Mysterio, Sin Cara, Zack Ryder and The Undertaker are all incapacitated for one reason or another, but I think making Kane do double duty would've got the crowd more jazzed up than Epico.

Oh wait, I did think of two more gripes! One, I hate, hate, HATE when guys in title matches get to be in the Rumble. You got your title shot, you lost, you should at least have to wait until the Elimination Chamber. Ziggler and Big Show both got to come back in and Big Show was really bad since he was a really anticlimactic #30. Hell, Road Dogg would've been a more exciting #30.

Now, what I did like about some of the more random entries was that it served as a great way to bring some guys back. Alex Riley and Great Khali aren't going to be setting the world on fire anytime soon, but after not seeing them for awhile, it was a nice "oh, that guy" moment.

Of course, no return was cooler than Kharma's which literally made me scream "HOLY SHIT!" from my couch. Kharma was a house of fire too, looking like she hadn't missed a day of work, even hitting Dolph Ziggler with the Implant Buster. Did not expect her back this soon, but it was great to see her. Not gonna lie, I kinda wanted her to win. C'mon, you know Kharma vs. Daniel Bryan for the World Title would be awesome.

One things for sure, this was definitely the funniest Royal Rumble in history. The comedy stylings of Santino & Foley had me in stitches; the Socko vs. Cobra battle was one of those things that if you didn't laugh, you take this shit way too seriously. And of course we can't forget the glorious entrance of Ricardo Rodriguez, driving to the ring in his busted ass ride and very unflattering virgin-white ensemble. And I'm not one to talk about someone's definition, but Ricardo kinda looked like a Ziploc bag filled with cookie dough.

And I loved the nod to 1997 with all three announcers taking a break from their duties to compete in the Rumble, only to be tossed out and return to commentary. King wasn't a huge shocker and his 97 appearance is one of my favorite Rumble comedy bits, but when Booker T stood up in his blazer with no pants on, I nearly pissed myself. The joke almost lost its punch with Cole, but then Kharma saved the whole thing. Great stuff.

Road Dogg & Jim Duggan were great legend picks and I don't care what anyone says about Road Dogg, I'll always love the guy. No, he was never a great wrestler, but he dripped charisma and really could've been a big deal in Attitude Era WWE had he not been his own worst enemy. Though as much as I love the D-O-double-G, I will never forgive him for causing people to think that Billy Gunn didn't suck shit.

Whoever made the call to change Wade Barrett's theme music should be fired. I don't care if it was Vince himself... fired!

No one is ever going to care about Jinder Mahal. I don't think I've ever heard a crowd go as silent as St. Louis did last night during his entrance. The crowd was so dead, you could hear Jimmy's tears hit the floor when he heard the Rumble has a strict one Uso policy.

Wow, Hunico's shtick is hardcore racist. Like 1800s Disney style.

Someone really took time out of their day to make a "KOFI SUCKS" sign? How sad is that guy's life? Even better, he was proven laughably wrong by Kofi's mindblowing handstand walk that kept him from being eliminated. That could've gone wrong so easily, but Kofi made it look almost effortless. Awesome moment and he should've won the Rumble (or at least a renewed push) on that alone. Somewhere, John Morrison stomping around in fur boots, upset that he didn't come up with that.

Chris Jericho eliminating Randy Orton in front of his hometown crowd instantly makes him my favorite wrestler of all the times.

Speaking of Jericho, I loved the ending bit with Sheamus. A really cool moment reminiscent of Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker in 2007 and made the match feel like a big deal. At first glance, I wasn't particularly stoked about Sheamus winning and I still have no idea what they're going to do with him, but it was a good call. Jericho doesn't need it to do whatever he wants to do at WrestleMania and Sheamus is WWE's best opportunity to get a good guy into that elusive upper echelon.

Sheamus, while directionless, has been almost Goldberg-ian as of late. Let him plow through guys until Mania, give him a decisive win and a nice long run with the title and we could see something really special emerge. That's a lot of ifs for the inconsistent WWE, but I don't think they would've given Sheamus the win if they didn't have big plans for him. Would've been very easy to play it safe with Jericho or Orton and it would've packed a bigger punch if Sheamus wasn't a two-time WWE Champion already, but I love the idea of him leading WWE as a good guy. Perhaps a tad anticlimactic, but the right call considering the circumstances.

And I think that sums up the Rumble well. There were a lot of guys on the sidelines but they did the best with what they had and wound up producing a very fun match. We're officially on the Road to WrestleMania now... you can tell because guys were pointing at the sign... and things are shaping up nicely. If I had to take a way-too-early guess:

The Rock vs. John Cena
CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho - WWE Title
Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan - World Title (though I wouldn't be shocked if Orton wins the Title in the Elimination Chamber)
Triple H vs. The Undertaker
Dolph Ziggler vs. Mick Foley

Pure speculation at this point, but what kind of wrestling fan would I be without some of that?

Overall, the undercard was underwhelming, but the Rumble made up for it and that's why we were all watching, right? Good show.

Royal Rumble predictions

2012-01-29T17:53:00.000-05:00

Pretty stoked for the show tonight, even more stoked by the fact that I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen on it. The field's wide open for the Rumble and all the undercard matches could really go in any direction. Let's take a look.

World Heavyweight Championship Cage Match
Daniel Bryan © vs. Big Show vs. Mark Henry
Ooh, a big gimmick match on the Rumble, don't see those too often. Last Man Standing matches pop up here and there, but it's rare to see something like a ladder, table or cage match. Please, correct me if I'm wrong (because I'm not going to take the time to look it up), but is this the first cage match in Rumble history? That's pretty cool.

I haven't been following Smackdown very closely lately, but I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say Daniel Bryan steals one tonight and likely drops it in the Elimination Chamber next month. Bryan and Henry had an awesome cage match on Smackdown a couple months ago though, so I'm expecting a really fun match with the addition of Big Show. Bryan can bounce around like a pinball and the monsters can tear shit up, so I'm anticipating a good time.

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate
John Cena vs. Kane
This one's tough to predict. If Kane is merely a bump in the road for Cena's eventual showdown with The Rock, I expect a simple win for Johnny. But if there may be something to this "Embrace the Hate" stuff, this could go on for another month and wind up being a big story moving forward. I think the former is the safe bet, so I'm going to go with John Cena, so he can turn his attention to The Rock and Kane can go back to being Just Kane™.

WWE Championship
CM Punk © vs. Dolph Ziggler
Much like Kane, Ziggler has had his opponent's number too many times in this feud to make me believe he can be victorious. Punk has perhaps done more than anyone to make Ziggler look like a legitimate top guy, but unfortunately, this just isn't his time. Just like last year wasn't his time or the year before that... they gotta stop pushing this guy right in the lead up to WrestleMania.

I do think Ziggler will finally break free if he does get that Mania match with Foley though. Foley's no star-maker anymore, but much like his run with Edge after he fell into limbo in 2006, I think it could be just what he needs. CM Punk wins tonight, Ziggler's time truly begins in May. Oh, and these two will have a absurdly early Match of the Year contender.

Royal Rumble Match
Things are relatively open this year, mainly because no one has really set the world on fire recently, so I expect an established name to earn the title shot at Mania. My working theory is Chris Jericho wins and it will be "the end of the world as we know it." As in, the man calling himself the Best in the World. Sorry, Punker.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 29

2012-01-29T14:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Royal Rumble Day!

2. John Cena vs. Umaga - 2007
2007 was John Cena's peak year and it started with this instant classic. After a fluke win over Umaga and ending his undefeated streak at New Year's Revolution (remember that?), Cena had to defend his title once again, this time in a Last Man Standing match.

Perhaps the last truly brutal match in a WWE ring before the shift in direction, this match silenced critics of both men. Well, people are always going to complain about Cena, but this match and the year that followed proved that the guy could get it done in the ring. You don't have to like him, but to say he can't wrestle or tell a great story in the ring is just pure fanboyism.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 28

2012-01-28T19:52:00.000-05:00

Another double post, we're getting close to #1!

4. Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit - 2003
Another great match for historical purposes, but once again, I haven't been able to watch it for almost five years. At the time, absolutely terrific, but now I have a hard time even watching Angle, let alone tapes of Benoit.

3. Royal Rumble Match - 1992
But let's lighten the mood with the greatest Royal Rumble match in history, 1992's. To date, it is the only Royal Rumble match where the WWE Championship was up for grabs (they should do that again) and that's only part of its intrigue.

A star-studded match with lots of stories heading in and out, high stakes and of course, The Nature Boy. Flair's performance, lasting a ridiculous amount of time after entering at #3 and Bobby Heenan on commentary, losing his shit? Perfection.

A couple years ago, I looked back on the Rumbles with the mindset that 92 had been overrated - it really pissed me off as a lil Hulkamaniac when I first watched - but after numerous viewings, yeah, it's the best Rumble ever and nothing else even comes close.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 26

2012-01-26T17:57:00.000-05:00

5. The Hardy Boyz vs. The Dudley Boyz - 2000
The 2000 Royal Rumble is probably my favorite non-WrestleMania PPV of the last 15 years... and the Rumble itself wasn't even that great. This PPV is absolutely stacked and this match is a true highlight. One of WWE's best 2-on-2 tag matches of the 00s and still holds up today, despite being an Attitude Era brawl. These guys definitely killed each other and while I won't complain that WWE's moved away from this style, it is a really fun match. Those damn chair shots to the head are incredibly hard to watch now though.

It was really a coming out party for both teams. The Hardys proved they weren't one-hit wonders with the No Mercy ladder match and the Dudleys avoided a disastrous Public Enemy-esque flop. Not sure either team would've become as big as they did in WWE without this match.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 25

2012-01-25T21:17:00.000-05:00

6. Royal Rumble Match - 2001
OMG, I love the 2001 Royal Rumble SO MUCH! It's the final Rumble of the last boom period and it happened right in this beautiful period in WWE history where the Attitude Era was still going strong, but Russo was gone and there was this terrific interest on wrestling. The Attitude Era gets a lot of undeserved hype as the last time wrestling was good, but people would shit all over most of it if it were ran today. However, the period from the 2000 Rumble to WrestleMania 17 was really, really good. A few hiccups here and there, sure, but WWE was on fire in that period and the 2001 Rumble was a true highlight.

Just look at it, we've got Kane kicking everyone's ass, a random Honky Tonk Man cameo, and Drew f'n Carey! As bizarre as that was, it was an excellent use of a celebrity and one of those things that really had no point, but turned out being a lot of fun.

Oh and of course, it was Steve Austin's third and final Rumble win. I cannot overstate how awesome was at this point and after returning from neck surgery in late 2000, Stone Cold was arguably the best he had ever been. This Rumble win, the amazing (and oddly forgotten) 3 Stages of Hell match with HHH at No Way Out and, of course, WrestleMania 17 might be my favorite Rumble-to-Mania stretch for any wrestler, ever. Bottom line (see what I did there?), Austin is God.

And one other thing, they brought back the cool animated poster for this year's Rumble. Not as cool as the cartoony ones from the early 90s, but I don't know why they stopped doing those.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 24

2012-01-24T20:29:00.000-05:00

7. Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels - 2003
Simple and effective. You take Shawn Michaels, one of the greatest of all-time, not quite sure if he's definitely going to wrestle full-time, but willing to do big matches like the Rumble and WrestleMania. Then you take Chris Jericho, a big-time Superstar that had frequently been compared to Shawn Michaels throughout his career. Jericho wanted to escape that comparison and out-Shawn Michaels Shawn Michaels by winning the Royal Rumble after entering at #1, Shawn wanted to protect his legacy, so he took the #1 spot, but Jericho's the ultimate prick so he earned the #2 spot.

It all came together quite well and Jericho shocked the world by easily eliminating Michaels in the early goings of the Rumble. Still, it's the most memorable story of the entire match and it wound up being the perfect set-up for their match at WrestleMania, which was an instant classic. It was also the match that gave HBK the confidence and desire to return to as a (mostly) full-time wrestler... and it all started in the Rumble.

Way Too Early

2012-01-24T06:39:00.002-05:00

This year's Royal Rumble stats video, always one of my faves.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 23

2012-01-23T20:44:00.000-05:00

8. John Cena vs. Smarks - 2008
OMG GUYZ, JOHN CENA SUX MY BUTT! HE IS THE WORST EVER! I AM SO GLAD HE'S HURT AND WON'T BE AROUND FOR A LONG TIME!

3...

CUZ LIKE I SAID...

2...

HE SUX MY BUTT!

1...

AND I HOPE HE NEVER COMES BACK!

OMG JOHN CENA!!!!!! I LOVE YOU! HAVE BABIES IN MY BUTT!

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 21 & 22

2012-01-22T17:28:00.000-05:00

Another double update today since I wasn't around much yesterday. And hey, we're in the top 10!

10. Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit - 2001
You could argue that this is the greatest ladder match in WWE history. There's the steel chair "batter-up" counter to the dive outside, the Walls of Jericho on the top of the ladder and the amazing chemistry these two had. But again, much like my entry on the 2004 Rumble match, it's hard to go back and watch. At the time though? Yeah, easily one of the best ladder matches WWE has done and a rare gimmick match at the Rumble PPV.

9. Ax vs. Smash - 1989
Oh yeah, now this is happy times. It might seem silly to put a 2-minute brawl in the top ten of a Rumble countdown, but when I was a kid, this was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Ax & Smash were tag partners, tag team champions, presumably best friends, but they each drew #1 and #2, what would happen? They'd beat the hell out of each other, that's what happened! They didn't tease it, there was no "will they or won't they," they immediately starting punching the other in the face.

It was fun when they did it again in 98 with Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie, but by that point and especially today, we're used to the "every man for himself" thing. But in 1989? I had never seen anything quite like this and it definitely earns it a spot in the top 10. Also doesn't hurt that Demolition will always be my favorite tag team of all-time.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 20

2012-01-20T22:20:00.000-05:00

11. Christian vs. Ezekiel Jackson - 2010
Much like Mr. Kennedy in 2007, this should've been Big Zeke's big moment. This match absolutely tore the house down, affirming Christian's status as WWE's star-maker and setting Zeke up for a major run following ECW's demise.

Unfortunately, Zeke's quad tear sidelined him for months and then he got saddled with the disastrous Corre stable and he hasn't recovered since. But Zeke is capable of greatness and this match certainly showed it, especially when he's in the ring with one of the best performers in WWE today, Captain Charisma.

I feel like this is one of those matches I nerd out over that was just a blip on everyone else's radar, but I absolutely love it. If it didn't impress you the first time around, give it another watch, I think it's aged pretty well.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 19

2012-01-19T18:27:00.000-05:00

12. Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon - 1993
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Scott Hall? Shocking, the guy named Razor loved Razor Ramon as a kid. Ramon's rise to the WWE Title match at the Rumble in 93 was unlikely, rumors were Bret was supposed to defend against The Ultimate Warrior, but I think it's safe to say this match was much better than that hypothetical battle would have been.

These two had a great old school wrestling match with Bret being much more aggressive than usual, perhaps due to the fact that Razor threw his toothpick in the face of the little kid Bret gave his sunglasses to before the match. Have I mentioned how much I love Scott Hall?

It's not a flashy match and I do prefer their battle at the inaugural King of the Ring PPV later that year, but for what was their first one-on-one encounter in WWE, it turned out to be a really solid bout. Vintage Heenan & Gorilla on commentary too!

Million Dollar Man segment on Rachel Maddow Show

2012-01-19T06:38:00.001-05:00

I've often said wrestling and politics aren't that different from each other, Rachel Maddow agrees. In a segment that aired last night, Maddow celebrated Ted DiBiase's birthday by comparing him to Mitt Romney (sorry Ted) and saying that in the very unsubtle world of pro wrestling, the rich guy was clearly the bad guy. However, we've recently taken this strange turn in our politics and for some reason, we want to paint Hulk Hogan as the villain and DiBiase as the hero.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 17 & 18

2012-01-18T17:07:00.000-05:00

As promised, a double update!

14. Randy Orton vs. Jeff Hardy - 2008
Ah, nothing like kicking someone's brother where his appendix used to be to get a feud going. Full disclosure, this is the last Randy Orton feud I remember really enjoying and not begrudgingly. Hardy was scorching hot with the audience at this point and hadn't yet begun his series of unfortunate events and Orton was at his prickish best, they made natural rivals.

I wasn't sure if this two would gel particularly well since neither were exactly ring generals, but I think they both silenced many of their critics here by putting on an extremely entertaining and dramatic WWE style main event. The build was great, the match was exciting and the end was heartbreaking, you can't ask for much else.

13. Batista vs. Mr. Kennedy - 2007
Speaking of Mr. Kennedy, this match should have been the point when he silenced his. Unfortunately, five years later and it looks like this match was more of a freak accident than anything. Batista wasn't quite as stale as he was right before his big turn in late 2009, but he had a tall order up against the untested Kennedy. These two wound up putting on a hell of a match that's easily Kennedy/Anderson's best to date and I'd put it in Batista's top ten as well. It's so good, in fact, I'm calling it the 13th best match at the Royal Rumble, ever.

While it's now a blip on the radar and practically forgotten, it's an underrated gem that kept me a Kennedy fan through thick and thin... until he went through the charisma grinder that is TNA.

WWE Raw - January 16, 2012

2012-01-17T21:16:00.000-05:00

What a difference a week makes. Mere days after one of the most bizarre, random Raws in recent memory, WWE came back to the table with a cohesive, dramatic and story-driven show that could very well have WrestleMania implications.

Mick Foley obviously doesn't have the "OMG!" factor of The Rock or even Steve Austin, but I had a very good feeling about this show when things kicked off with the Hardcore Legend. Foley has been a WWE Champion, he's even headlined WrestleMania, but he has never won the Royal Rumble and made it known he wants to fix that this year. Honestly, I'm not opposed to that, CM Punk vs. Mick Foley at WrestleMania? Why the hell not? Cena vs. Rock is selling the show, have some fun with the WWE Title match.

Although those WrestleMania implications I mentioned earlier would lead me to believe Mick Foley vs. Dolph Ziggler is much more likely to happen in Miami and I don't think I'd mind that either. Hell of a promo from Ziggler too, berating Foley with the wit of Barney Stinson while dressed as Sonny Crockett, could there possibly be a better character in wrestling right now? CM Punk, perhaps? Punk hasn't had much to work with in recent weeks, but holy hell he brought his game last night. I thought his tirade against Ziggler was one of his best in awhile, but it seemed like small potatoes compared to the second time he grabbed the pipe bomb... more on that in a bit.

In case you haven't heard, Evan Bourne was suspended once again today, putting him on the shelf for 60 days. I wonder if the suspension came down before the Tag Title switch at the house show or if it's just a coincidence? Either way, AirBoom is probably done, which is a shame because I always wanted to see Evan and Kofi team up, but I don't know if there's any coming back from this. I don't know if they'll outright release Bourne and I do think it's kinda bullshit that these guys can't smoke a little weed now and then and instead go for dangerous synthetic substitutes, but that's another debate for another day. Bottom line, I don't want to see Bourne lose his gig, so hopefully he'll do what he needs to do to keep that from happening.

The match with Primo & Epico was fun and fast-paced, but obviously too short. I wish I could say I was eager to see what the future holds for the tag division, but I'm pretty sure this quick switch was just to get the belts off AirBoom, not to actually do anything with them.

One of the best sight-gags from WWE in quite awhile came from Chris Jericho meeting up with Johnny Ace backstage. He turned off all the lights in the office and without saying a word, turned his Christmas Tree jacket on. Hilarious.

In a make-good for last week's controversial finish against CM Punk, Jack Swagger got a United States Title match against a clearly injured Zack Ryder. Swagger captured the title in a move that surely sent the IWC into a fit of rage, but this was good storytelling. It's a bummer to see Ryder drop the belt, but it's supposed to bum you out, it wasn't fair. It took three - three - Gutwrench Powerbombs to put Ryder down, despite lingering injuries he suffered at the hands of Kane last week. I don't know if that says more about Ryder's toughness or how ineffective Jack Swagger has been for three years, but regardless, Ryder came out of that looking like a fighter.

For as much as I love Ryder, his character is extremely limited right now and he was on the path to becoming Santino 2.0 once the cheers died off. And of course they were going to die off, the whole point in the "WE WANT RYDER!" chants was that we were not, in fact, getting Ryder. Now that we're getting him, there's not as much of a need to cheer and being "the Woo Woo Woo guy" was only going to go so far. There's nothing wrong with being a comedy character, Kurt Angle's early WWE run is a classic example of it working out perfectly, but there's gotta be some depth there. Right now, Ryder's a catchphrase machine and the addition of some hard times and conflict will hopefully be exactly what he needs.

Perez Hilton is just the worst and his segment was stupid. Clearly they were trying to promote whatever he's got going on with his fitness blog with the Divas, which is fine, but talk about shoehorning someone into a segment.

R-Truth however, is just the best. His slideshow photos from Disneyland are my new favorite everything and Wade Barrett just letting him go on and on was perfect. Oh and Truth's "I don't even know if that's PG!" at Pinocchio's nose growing was the first time the "That's not PG" joke has ever been funny.

I'm sad that The Miz is still stuck being a punching bag (well, kicking bag) for Sheamus, but the four-man mini Rumble was fun and it was cool to see Truth win. I wasn't sure if Truth's shtick would work as a good guy, but after a bit like this, I think it might turn out for the best. Speaking of comedy characters, Truth is a great example of how to do it right. Can we get this guy a WWE Title run already?!

One thing I enjoy about Executive Vice President of Talent Relations, Interim General Manager of Raw and Part-time Shoe-Shiner, John Laurinaitis is how he's willing to admit fault in his own prickish way, then make the situation even worse. He admitted there was a mistake in the Swagger/Punk match last week, so he tried to make it right by giving Swags a US Title shot, which wasn't right to do to Ryder since he wasn't medically cleared, so he tried to make John Cena happy by giving him a match against Swagger, which almost got Swagger killed. Whew.

Yeah, John Cena embraced the hate by embracing felonious assault and damn near killing poor Jackie Swaggs. I don't really see how it was Swagger's fault that he got put in a match with an injured Ryder, but again, that's the point. Kane is clearly getting to John Cena and the "will he or won't he" talk about a turn gets to heat up a bit more. BTW, he won't.

"The Funkasaurus" Brodus Clay is one of those things that makes me wish I could just sit in a room and watch the WWE creative process unfold. How did Planet Funk make its way to Earth? I could easily imagine the WWE writers sitting in a room thinking, "we need to come up with something different for Brodus, generic monster is out right now." But I could also see it being something Brodus himself came up with, I know nothing about the guy, he's not on Twitter (except as a retweet machine) and we've never seen an out-of-character glimpse of him. But maybe he's a bit of a goofball and it caught on backstage?

But my personal favorite is Vince McMahon himself coming up with the idea and pitching it to Brodus much like he pitched "Puke" to Droz in the 1999 documentary Behind the Mat. Instead of "HE'S GONNA... HE'S GONNA... HE'S GONNA PUKE! HE'S GONNA PUUUUUUKE!" he sat Brodus down, took the cap off his Aquafina and said "You're not just Brodus Clay, Brodus is gonna bore-us... you're THE FUNKASAURUS! HE'S BIG! HE'S FUNKY! HE'S THE FUNKASAURUS! BAAAAAAAAAAACK BODY DROP!"

However it came to be, the character continued to be fun in his match with JTG, but he REALLY needs a new finisher. Okay, I don't want to see the Stinkface or anything, but he needs something like that. Something funny and slightly dehumanizing to his opponents that the crowd can cheer along with. Brodus... are you able to do the Worm?

Daniel Bryan blaming Big Show for AJ's injury was pretty spectacular. Anyone who ever said Bryan didn't have the charisma or "mic skills" to be in WWE had no idea what they were talking about. Fun fact: it's not an RPG (no matter how much I want it to be), just because someone has a high magic stat, it doesn't mean they need a low charisma stat for balance.

The main event turned out to be the real highlight of the show. A six-man tag featuring CM Punk, Daniel Bryan & ~~Chris Jericho~~ taking on Dolph Ziggler, Mark Henry & David Otunga. You know how WWE six-man tags work at this point, but the ultra-hot crowd sent this way way up the list and that hot tag to Jericho was nothing short of spectacular. In case you missed it, Punk was getting his ass kicked, the crowd was pleading for Jericho to come in, exploded when he got the hot tag, he got them all fired up and just when you thought he was going to attack... he left the ring. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Bryan and Henry were also took themselves out the match, brawling all over the arena in preparation of their match this Friday for the World Two-First-Names Championship, which left the door open for Mick Foley to save the day! Foley performed his greatest hits: punches in the corner, running knee to the face, double-arm DDT, Pink Houses and Mr. Socko to get the win and send us home happy. Yay!

But EVPOTRAIGMOMNR John Laurinaitis wasn't having any of that. He didn't sign off on Foley as a participant in this match or the Rumble and overturned the decision. CM Punk responded by tearing Johnny a new asshole in one of the greatest verbal takedowns he's ever done. Muhammad Ali turned 70 today and all he wanted was to watch that promo again... true story! YouTube it if you missed it, hell YouTube it if you saw it, because it was Punk's best work since the night he started the whole pipe bomb thing.

Punk walked off, leaving Johnny Ace and Cactus Jack behind and Laurinaitis confirmed he will screw Punk at the Rumble and blasted Foley in the head with the microphone. Truly terrific work from Laurinaitis here and he has really evolved into a great villain, I was totally wrong about making him an on-air character. It's obviously not Austin/McMahon, nothing ever will be, but if Johnny keeps showing the fire he showed last night, this feud could become something really special. I'm really digging it.

And I really dug last night's Raw. My good buddy Bill Baconhill called in the best in a year and while I'm not sure if I'd go that far, it was a lot of fun. As I mentioned, the stories are really coming together, the main event was fun and the Anaheim crowd was definitely the best in the last year, if not the last several. More like this, please!

Programming note: time slipped away from me today, so I'll do a double Royal Rumble Top 30 post tomorrow with matches #13 and #14. Thanks!

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 16

2012-01-16T19:46:00.001-05:00

15. Jumping Bomb Angels vs. The Glamour Girls

Why doesn't WWE do this anymore? It's clearly not hard, they did it 24 years ago, there is no shortage of talented female wrestlers, just do good female wrestling already!

I have to thank my buddy Jason Mann for talking up the Bomb Angels over the last few years because admittedly, I forgot all about the Women's Tag Title era of WWE. This match in particular is wonderful and the crowd loves it, I just don't understand why WWE doesn't present something even half as good as this as their current division.

I think it's safe to say this is the best women's match to ever take place in the history of the Rumble event and if you've never seen it, YouTube it now. Here, I'll even help!

Programming note: no live blog tonight, not even sure if I'll be awake through the entirety of Raw. Review will be up tomorrow, thanks!

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 15

2012-01-15T18:18:00.000-05:00

16. Royal Rumble match - 2004

I always flip back and forth on including anything related to Chris Benoit on lists like these. I rarely talk about him, I generally roll my eyes at anyone who says "I choose to remember him for the matches," and any fan talk about putting him in the Hall of Fame makes me gag, but for historical purposes, I don't think you can pretend the matches don't exist.

The 2004 Royal Rumble was one of my personal favorites from the last decade, mainly thanks to great stories told throughout and a dramatic ending sequence. It's unfortunate that my excitement about that finish has been replaced with sadness, but in 2004, it was a good Rumble.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 14

2012-01-14T22:58:00.000-05:00

17. Shawn Michaels vs. The World - 2010

I wasn't a huge fan of the 2010 Rumble, the whole thing felt compartmentalized, it almost felt like WCW's World War 3 with three different matches going on. But instead of three rings, it was just one match divided into three segments with little overlap thanks to too many rapid fire eliminations and no one hanging in there very long.

However, there was one great story within the match, HBK's increasing desperation to get a rematch against The Undertaker at WrestleMania. Taker thought he had nothing left to prove against Michaels, having beaten him at WrestleMania 25, but Taker was the World Champion at the time and told Shawn he could get a rematch if he earned a title shot by winning the Rumble.

Shawn's struggle in the match was expertly executed and I don't think anyone but HBK could've got the audience to care this much about someone going for their third Royal Rumble win to see a match we had just seen a year before. That's just how good HBK was though and that moment when he falls off the apron is one of the greatest "AHHHH!" moments in Rumble history.

Shawn still got his rematch, but it cost him his career, and the 2010 Rumble was one of the finest performances near the end of his career.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 13

2012-01-13T18:34:00.000-05:00

18. The Rock vs. Chris Jericho - 2002

I have a much deeper appreciation for the Jericho/Rock rivalry. At its peak, I hadn't yet gone through treatment, so you were likely to hear me say things like "OMG JERICHO IZ BURRRRIIIIEEEEDDD!!!" But looking back, these two had some great matches, terrific promos and The Rock's "burials" were just what The Rock did, for better or worse. And after reading Jericho's books and learning how much he loved working with The Rock and how many good matches they had (even if most were marred by Attitude Era finishes), they're much more fun to go back and revisit with the benefit of hindsight.

And speaking of promos, this match gets a place on the list for Jericho's promo on the Smackdown before the Rumble. The infamous "YOU WILL NOT LOOK PAST ME!" promo that was probably my favorite Jericho promo up until his 2008 turn and started calling us all mucilaginous troglodytes.

The match is pretty great too, mainly thanks to The Rock's unmatched intensity and Jericho's general amazingness. As mentioned, they did have some bad finishes in their storied rivalry and this match is no exception, though I do think it would've worked better in any other era. But everything beforehand is powerful thanks to its obscenely talented participants and a red hot Atlanta crowd. Wouldn't it be great if these two locked up one more time in 2012? Would be a hell of a SummerSlam main event; just throwing it out there, Dwayne!

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 12

2012-01-12T19:54:00.000-05:00

19. The Rockers vs. The Orient Express

For my money, this is one of the greatest tag team matches to ever take place in a WWE ring. It's my favorite Rockers match and obviously the most memorable Orient Express match, ever. It's perhaps a bit too reliant on rest holds early on, but the stuff later on just wasn't what you were accustomed to seeing in WWE in 91. It may seem tame now, but high cross bodies to the outside, suicide dives, moonsaults, these were all very foreign to young Razor and it was just so awesome.

Another boon to the match was the fact that the crowd was SUPER into it. Didn't hurt that it was the opener, but Shawn Michaels takes a hell of a beating and the crowd goes absolutely bonkers when Marty Jannetty gets the hottest of hot tags. And just when it looks like all hope is lost for The Rockers, they sneak a win with an incredibly clever finish.

Damn, I love this match; go watch it now if you've never seen it. Oh and how badass is the Orient Express theme song?

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 11

2012-01-11T19:47:00.000-05:00

20. Royal Rumble Match - 1998

Cracking the top 20 with our second full Rumble match inductee, the 1998 Royal Rumble, headlined by Steve Austin's win that would propel him to the WWE Championship and more importantly, the biggest period the industry has ever seen.

The Royal Rumble itself is never about putting on a "five-star" match, the logistics of the match prevent that, the entertainment factor comes from the anticipation of the next entrant and having fun. This match excels at that because there was the story of everyone trying to take out Austin and of course, Mick Foley entering with all three of his personas.

As usual, Austin kicked ass and The Rock played a great villain, which would set up the following year's story quite well. I don't know if that was intentional, but those two had such tremendous chemistry, you have to believe it was in the back of someone's mind.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 10

2012-01-10T21:10:00.000-05:00

21. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels - 2004

It is impossible for Shawn Michaels and Triple H to have a bad match against each other. Oh sure, some of their matches may suffer from masturbatory grandiosity, but when you're as good as these two are/were, you've earned an opportunity to pat yourself on the back. Much like yesterday's entry of Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio, HBK and HHH just make it look effortless.

This was a Last Man Standing match, which allowed for a draw in the finish (and again, you can get away with stuff like this in big title matches at the Rumble) and for them to keep their feud going. Shawn and Hunter feuded off and on from HBK's return in 2002 all the way to DX's reunion in 2006, but this was their longest stretch. It arguably started at Backlash 2003 when Shawn transitioned from his feud with Jericho into a battle against Evolution (though admittedly his sights were much more focused on Orton and Flair than HHH) and it really didn't end until their Hell in a Cell match in the summer of 2004.

This match turned out to be a great launchpad for a rivalry that certainly dominated Raw and overshadowed Chris Benoit's World Title reign, but in retrospect, that was for the best. These two cast a big shadow, no doubt about it, but their list of matches speaks for itself. Even when a bout was "just" a launchpad for bigger matches to come, they still out-performed just about everyone.

WWE Raw - January 9, 2012

2012-01-10T07:19:00.003-05:00

There are good Raws, there are bad Raws and then there's last night's Raw. It is possible for a show to be so bizarre, ridiculous and quirky that you totally love it and the guy next to you thinks it's the dumbest thing that's ever been put on television. Hell, even a flat-out great episode of Raw can elicit that kind of reaction, so just imagine how polarizing last night's acid trip will be perceived.

And that's really the best way I can describe it, I woke up this morning at 5:18am wondering if I had dreamed the entire thing after a Cheetos bender gone wrong. Surely they didn't bring back Brodus Clay as Amish Flash Funk, the dancing dinosaur from an undiscovered planet outside of our solar system, right? Right?! Well...

Only in wrestling, my friend.

And while that's the most obvious example to illustrate Raw's oddness, it was really just the beginning.

The major storyline throughout the show was a mini horror movie... literally. Kane made his intentions clear(ish) to start the show, he wants Cena to embrace his hate because he always gets what he wants, the fans suck or the camp counselors let him burn while they were off having sex, one of those. John Cena tried to confront Kane early in the show, because every good horror movie needs the first encounter with the monster, but managed to stun him well enough to send him running.
Inspiration: Sydney fighting off Ghostface in her house early on in Scream

But like any good villain that gets embarrassed by the protagonist, Kane decided to murder John Cena's friends instead. All throughout the night, Kane was lurking in the shadows while Zack Ryder performed various tasks like hitting on the hot chick, brushing his teeth and babysitting the Doyle kid.
Inspiration: Michael Myers in Halloween

Late in the evening, Eve was supposed to battle Beth Phoenix for a shot at the Diva's Championship, but instead Kane's music played, in a clever ruse to draw out Zack Ryder. Ryder "rescued" Eve and took her to his Kia Soul, except the tire was flat! Oh no, whatever will they do?! They have a flat tire in the middle of ~~nowhere~~ this 15,000 seat arena with cabs lined up around the block to pick up drunk wrestling fans, they'll never get out of this one! Luckily, Zack Ryder (sorta) knows how to change a tire, but Eve's just a girl and can't figure these things out, she just hopes Zack knows what he's doing!
Inspiration: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, any movie with crazed hillbillies in a small town.

And while Ryder struggled with changing a tire (righty-tighty, lefty-loosey, c'mon!) and Eve cried from the passenger seat, their best buddy John Cena just went about his business in a main event match with Dolph Ziggler. Hey, he can't worry about something as silly as a serial chokeslammer on the loose, he's got a football game to win! Eventually Cena did the right thing and tried to save his friends, but of course it was just a clever trap; Kane finished him off with "The Nasty Hold on Cena's Face Again™" and Raw ended exactly the same way as it has for the last month.
Inspiration: Any horror film with more than three entries in the franchise.

Now the big question this week was WWJD: What Would Jericho Do? After being "overwhelmed with emotion" last week, as Jerry Lawler put it, surely Jericho would talk tonight, right? Sorry, he just couldn't, the tears were welling up in his eyes and he became even more overwhelmed! "MY EMOTIONS! MY EMOTIOOOONS!"

Remember that episode of The Office, back when it was still funny, when Jim couldn't talk and he makes up a story about a family member affected by substance abuse and he conveys it entirely through fake crying? It was kinda like that, so my only guess is someone has placed a jinx on Jericho and he can't speak until he buys them a Coke.

My other theory is that Chris Jericho is playing Hulk Hogan circa 2002 where he just basks in the adoration of the fans every week for five to ten minutes. Maybe next week he'll team up with Edge and beat two gay guys for the tag titles. Don't worry, it's just a publicity stunt, so it's totally not homophobic.

Elsewhere on Raw, CM Punk battled Jack Swagger in the 10pm main event and it looked like things were finally going to settle down. Hey it's Punk and the very capable Swagger in the longest match of the night, surely this would be our moment of zen? WRONG! Right in the middle of a great match, CM Punk landed the Flying Elbow Smash, only for the ref to screw up a near fall and count the three too early. CM Punk look pissed, but commentary did an awesome job covering things up and it felt like one of those moments where an NFL ref blows an obvious call. As well as it worked, it continued the bizarre thread that weaved its way through the evening.

Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston was a one-minute squash with the World Champion easily dispatching one half of the tag champs. Apparently there was a backstory to this match on WWE.com, but they put up the link while the match was going on. Like I said, weird show. Bryan's excessive celebrating escalated further, which I love, but apparently Big Show does not. Show came to the ring after the match to tell Bryan he has to defend the World Championship again this Friday, and this time it's no count-out and no DQ. If that match happened on this show, Bryan would've made Big Show tap out in 45 seconds.

Oh yeah, did I mention Curt Hawkins was Brodus Clay's opponent? Like I said, weird show.

Another ongoing story throughout this show was The Miz trying to lure R-Truth out of hiding to give him a beat down. This culminated with Miz forcing Ricardo Rodriguez to go out to the ring and say "really offensive things," which made me really nervous. Also, why the hell does Ricardo have to work while Del Rio is injured? Did Virgil have to work when Ted DiBiase was vacationing at his seasonal residence? That ain't right!

Anyway, Truth finally came out of hiding, but fought off a Miz blindside (that's what happens when you broadcast your evil plan on a TV show watched by 5 million Lil Jimmies) and this story ended exactly the same way as it has for the last three weeks. Sound familiar?

And finally, Sheamus & Santino Marella (what?) took on Wade Barrett & Jinder Mahal (what what?!) in the most pointless tag match ever. This was a match that made you question if WWE knows what the word "super" means when they call it a "SuperShow."

There were two really awesome bits of news though, they announced the first two inductees into the 2012 WWE Hall of Fame: Edge and The Four Horsemen! That's really sweet of them to give the nod to Edge so soon, I bet he nerded out when they told him. And I've wanted them to induct The Horsemen as a group for years now and it's especially great because Ric Flair will be the first ever double inductee in the HOF. I know there were a lot of people wondering if he'd be at the ceremony due to his contract with TNA, but somehow I think WWE can work around a legal document written in crayon. And yay, Arn Anderson's finally going in!

Oh and I need to put the kibosh on this now: Chris Benoit is NOT a Hall of Famer due to this. No, not even "technically," unless you also want to say Heidenreich is a Hall of Famer since the Road Warriors went in last year. Just knock that shit off right now.

So yeah, that was Raw. There were ass loads (that's slightly less than a shit ton) of problems, problems that have plagued Raw for the last two months, but somehow they didn't really matter. It was so absurd and stupid that it would've just pissed me off more if they tried to fix it on this show and it probably would have made things worse. My guess is they figured no one would watch due to the BCS game and just dove in head first. Sure, it's the middle of January, so the pool was empty, but sometimes wrestling is more entertaining when you've suffered massive head trauma.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 9

2012-01-09T20:22:00.001-05:00

22. The Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio - 2010

There's no one Rey Mysterio can't have a good match with. It doesn't matter if the opponent is two feet taller than him, outweighs him by a hundred pounds, and someone he's rarely been in the ring with, he can have a fantastic match with him. "Styles clash" is not a phrase in Rey Mysterio's vocabulary, there's a reason he's regarded as the easiest man to work with in the WWE locker room.

Of course, like a fine wine, The Undertaker keeps getting better with age. You put a healthy Undertaker in the ring with a top tier opponent and give it that big match feel, no one can outperform him.

Taker vs. Rey Rey is not a match that should've worked, but when you have two guys that are just this good, they make it look effortless.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 8

2012-01-08T14:41:00.001-05:00

23. Dolph Ziggler vs. Edge - 2011

Let's take a look at what I said about this one a year ago:

Edge vs. Dolph Ziggler for the World Heavyweight Championship kicked off the 2011 Royal Rumble, which was a little strange, but that's the way it goes sometimes. No doubt this was Match of the Night though and definitely a contender for Match of the Month. Ziggler has an uncanny knack for always being a bridesmaid and never the bride, but he does it better than anyone. I was sure he had this one in the bag after all the shenanigans from Vickie, but he just couldn't quite hang with Edge's bag of tricks, he even busted out the Edgeucator! One ref bump, Spear and KILLSWITCH~! later, Edge retained.

Dolph Ziggler's 2012 is beginning very similarly to his 2011, on the cusp of being a World Champion, even finding himself with titles around his waist through some shenanigans, but not quite there yet. It's not through a lack of trying though, Ziggler has consistently put on entertaining performances all year and his feud with Edge proved he was ready for the big time. Not his launchpad, but still a damn good match and a high point for the twilight of Edge's career.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 7

2012-01-07T18:40:00.000-05:00

24. Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty - 1993
Who would leave as Intercontinental Champion? Where did Sensational Sherri's loyalty lie? Who had the awesomer mullet? Those were just some of the questions heading into this match at the 1993 Royal Rumble.

I just re-watched this match for the purposes of this list and two things struck me as unfortunate. One, it's a shame that Marty Jannetty's legacy is "tag team partner that fades into obscurity," because the guy was really, really good. He had a decent run after The Rockers, he had a lengthy feud with Shawn Michaels, culminating in a brief IC Title reign and The New Rockers were totally ahead of their time... and I will defend anything Al Snow does, ever. Yes, even Kennel From Hell, the idea of a cage inside Hell in a Cell was cool, dammit! So can't we call the abandoned member of the tag team something else from now on? How about "The Anvil" or "The Samu?"

The other unfortunate thing I realized was that a lot of HBK's matches pre-WrestleMania X ladder match have been forgotten. That's probably because he has a list a mile long of absolutely fantastic main event matches, but he had a ton of great matches after The Rockers and before the legendary ladder match, this match included.

It's not their best match, I'd say the one on Monday Night Raw where Marty wins the IC Title is the highlight of their rivalry, and it's not a high-flying fast-paced match you'd expect from two guys that pioneered the style in the US; it's just a great wrestling match. Gorilla & Brain provide sell the story superbly on commentary and Marty plays the sympathetic good guy perfectly. Go back and watch this one if you haven't seen it in awhile, or ever, it's good stuff.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 6

2012-01-06T23:07:00.000-05:00

25. Diesel vs. Bret Hart - 1995
Did Kevin Nash ever have a better opponent than Bret Hart? I'm sure you could replace "Kevin Nash" with many names and it would still be a valid question, but Bret really did bring out the best in Big Daddy Cool. Diesel's WWE Title reign is not fondly remembered today, though I do admit I greatly enjoyed it as a kid (okay, except the Mabel feud, even at age 11 I knew that was stupid), but I think there are quite a few good to great moments within it.

The highlights are, of course, his matches with Bret Hart. And while this match wasn't their best, primarily due to the clusterfuck finish (but hey, it's the Rumble, you can get away with that on the undercard), it's an overlooked match that's easily one of Nash's top five performances.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 5

2012-01-05T20:27:00.001-05:00

26. Royal Rumble Match - 2011
Perhaps a divisive pick since it's so recent, but I think last year's Rumble match has already earned its place in the pantheon of great Rumble matches. After years of safe bets (Orton, Undertaker) and surprise returns (Edge, Cena), WWE actually rolled the dice on giving the Rumble win to someone who wasn't already a main eventer, Alberto Del Rio.

But as nice at it was for WWE to use the match as a stepping stone for a rising star once again, I think more importantly, the match was just really fun. Booker T returning, Kevin Nash making an awesome cameo as Diesel (and why didn't they keep him in the chrome and black?), and Santino's tease at the end was genuinely surprising and somehow managed to be dramatic. And it wasn't just those big moments either - CM Punk and Daniel Bryan had an great start, John Morrison's saving himself on the barricade was unbelievable and Punk continued the awesomeness by giving the Nexus their last interesting moment.

And I was worried the match being the first 40-man Rumble in history would clutter things up and while it did feel a bit compartmentalized at times, it wound up being a real blast.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 4

2012-01-04T18:10:00.000-05:00

27. Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker - 2007
Before their two legendary matches at WrestleManias 25 and 26, the latter which ended HBK's career, Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker produced one hell of a climax to the 2007 Royal Rumble. The two had been kept apart for nearly a decade at this point and in a match that's not typically known for amazing wrestling, they gave us a real nail biter that was also a pretty damn good 10-minute match, regardless of the Rumble setting. Taker was a bloody mess after Rated RKO wreaked havoc, Michaels was the proverbial house of fire, the hometown crowd was bonkers for HBK, JBL was awesome on commentary, it just all came together very well. It obviously wasn't anything like their WrestleMania classics, but if it would've ended with a pinfall instead of an over the top rope elimination and got an extra 5 to 10 minutes, it could've headlined any other PPV.

It was also a nice touch for The Undertaker to not only get his first Rumble win, but be the first guy to win at #30. It was also the greatest live moment I've personally experienced live when I got to see Undertaker take this Rumble win to WrestleMania 23 and defeat Batista for the World Championship. Think we might see him go for another Rumble win by returning at this year's event?

Way Too Early

2012-01-04T06:00:00.001-05:00

Want a wardrobe like Chris Jericho? It's easy!

Chris Jericho: Playin' With Your Head

2012-01-03T18:47:00.003-05:00

Chris Jericho has earned a reputation for messing with the internet. In some ways, it's undeserved because it's not like he's constantly "working" (I hate that term, BTW) us. Sure, he's done a couple things over the years, like posing in front of the TNA logo when Fozzy was just lending a song to one of their PPVs and the recent "I'm never working for WWE again" bit, but Andy Kaufman, he's not.

But he does have an interesting relationship with the community. In the late 90s, Jericho was one of the first wrestlers to really embrace the internet. Long before we could talk to Zack Ryder on Twitter, Jericho was interacting with fans through his personal website. He even cruised dirtsheet message boards... that was until King of the Ring 2002. Jericho wrestled RVD in the opening match of that PPV and when he checked the reviews later that night, he went off on the usual smarky nonsense that polluted the usual sites. I don't remember the specifics and I'm sure his rant has been lost to time, but Jericho basically swore off the IWC, claiming no matter how good the performance, they'll never be satisfied.

Of course, he was right, but eventually came back into the fold thanks to the rise of social media, but his relationship with internet fans (I kinda hate that term too) remained rocky. In 2010, he went on this rant after reneging on his promise to leave WWE if he lost a match:

"Hey Internet...Im a heel. Heels lie, therefore if I say something boastfully and reneg on it, it's not an official stipulation. Smarten up! Hello Internet experts. Allow me to explain something to u kiddies. Winning and losing means nothing if you do it properly. I would be happy to lose to every single one of you and watch your faces as I walk out of the arena with more heat than before. Watch and learn children. Sit back and let the real experts work our magic as we make u behave like the puppets that you are. Cheers!"

It's not that I think Jericho wants to "work" the internet, he just wants to be hated, because he's a bad guy and bad guys are supposed to be hated. He's not the nWo, he doesn't want to be the cool heel that all the "smart" fans cheer for, he wants to be hated, he likes being the villain. He said years ago he never wanted to be a good guy again and if I had to take a guess, I'd wager that's where he's going with his return. He comes in all smiles with that ridiculously awesome jacket and plays to the crowd, but then it becomes pandering, then it becomes obnoxious and we're all left scratching our heads. And all of us who marked out (bro), got a splash of ice cold water to the face, courtesy of Jericho, who has no interest in those of us who cheer for him, and maybe, just maybe, he wants us to play along.

Getting pissy about a "weak payoff" and "worst return ever" might not be the reaction Jericho was looking for, but it probably is the one he expected and that's an intriguing story to write. To everyone bitching about it without a single follow-up yet, you're proving him right.

Jericho's basically at a point in his career where he can do anything he wants creatively and he doesn't have to be in WWE. He's like a modern day Roddy Piper, he returns occasionally to tell the best stories in wrestling. And... just when you think you have all the answers, he changes the questions.

Another big thanks to Andrew Southern for the graphic work and Boss Lady Rae for sharing!

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 3

2012-01-03T15:57:00.002-05:00

28. Bret Hart vs. Lex Luger - 1994

I don't hear today's entry talked about very often, which is somewhat surprising, I figured it would be one of those love it or hate it things that always gets brought up for debate. Admittedly, I haven't watched the 1994 Royal Rumble in quite awhile and don't remember much from the match itself, but I distinctly remember the ending and really dug it. Both Bret Hart and Lex Luger went over the top rope at the same time and the referees were left with no other choice but to declare them the co-winners of the 1994 Royal Rumble.

It was different and for this 10-year-old fan, that made it really cool. I was definitely #TeamLuger in those days, I had a jean jacket with the American flag on the back of it, so Lex and I had similar tastes, which made him my hero. Of course, Bret went on to tear the house down with Owen and regain the WWE Title later in the evening at WrestleMania 10, while Lex went on to... uh... hmmm... feud with Tatanka? So as you can see, I don't always put my money on the right horse.

But what did you think of the finish to the 94 Rumble? Since I never hear about it and it's only been reattempted once with Batista and Cena in 2005, would you like to see another controversial Rumble finish in the future? Does it spice things up or is it a cheap ploy for attention?

WWE Raw - January 2, 2012

2012-01-02T20:57:00.020-05:00

It's the second day of two-thousand-twelve (but cool kids say twenty-twelve), and it will begin. What is it? It's it.

What is it?

IT'S IT!

What is it?

YOU WANT IT ALL, BUT YOU CAN'T HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE IT!

IT'S IN YOUR FACE, BUT YOU CAN'T GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAB IT!

Yep, live blogging. Refresh your tab, follow me on Twitter in the other if you're so inclined.

Weird cold open for Raw with Cole hyping the WWE Title match then going to the video package, recapping Kane's "Cenas teh sux" from last week. And now Nickelback? C'mon WWE, you're killing me, we're over three minutes in and I haven't even seen the arena.

Here we go, finally starting 2012 with the arrival of John Cena. Contrary to popular belief, he does not suck, but he could use a little dusting off. John does his usual "hey guys, it's cool if you hate me, I still think you're great" shtick, which is really unhealthy at this point. C'mon John, it's like you're in an abusive relationship, dump these assholes, stay at your sister's, cry for a week and move on!

In ring action begins with the World Champion, Daniel Bryan taking on Cody Rhodes and this match should be awesome if given the time. And we're not even 25% of the way through Raw and Smackdown is already looking stacked this Friday. Daniel Bryan vs. Big Show with the World Title on the line and Cody Rhodes will defend the Intercontinental Title against Booker T? Definitely can't miss that show.

Match doesn't really get the time it deserves, but both guys look great. Bryan sneaks a roll-up and gets the win Bret Hart style. Put these two in the ring together at the Rumble and let the magic happen. What's up with Bryan's excessive celebrating though? I smell a bad guy.

Royal Rumble Recall to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the event? Love!

I also love seeing Wade Barrett throwing Randy Orton down a set of stairs. I think that image of Orton lying prone at the bottom of the steps will be my 2012 Christmas card. Barrett's in the ring celebrating his actions and promising that he'll win the 2012 Royal Rumble. I honestly don't think that would be too bad of an idea.

Santino Marella interrupts and reminds us that he lasted longer than Barrett in last year's Royal Rumble, he was the runner-up! Certainly more than enough to justify a match and it's already underway as I'm typing this sentence. Barrett makes easy work of Santino and finishes him off with the Bossman Slam, which he has redubbed "The Winds of Change." So we FINALLY found out what that was all about, the debut of his new finisher!

The Miz vs. Sheamus is up next, but Miz just comes in and DDTs the red off Sheamus's hair. Unfortunately, that will be the extent of his badassery tonight as Sheamus quickly recovers and sends Miz running into the crowd. Wait, the crowd? NO! Don't go in there, R-Truth used to do his entrance from there, he knows all its ins and outs, he's like Sean Connery in The Rock! Truth makes Miz get got and I get sad.

Looks like the WWE Championship match is coming up next for the 10pm main event, I thought It Begins would interrupt the match, but now I figure they'll save it for the end of the show. Hmmm. Great promo from Dolph Ziggler too.

Backstage, Zack Ryder & Jack Swagger are gonna throw down until John Laurinaitis interrupts and sets up a big six-man tag tonight with Zack Ryder, John Cena and Big Show (I think he said Big Show) taking on Jack Swagger, Kane and Mark Henry. Cool.

Here we go, 10pm main event time and the WWE Championship is on the line! CM Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler and this one should be huge. If they let this match, the six-man tag and "It" be all that's left on the show, this might be the best Raw of the year so far! If you'll forgive me, I'm going to step away from the live blog for this one and just enjoy it. You don't need my play-by-play, you should be watching it!

Hey, we're in commercial and so far, the match has been pretty awesome. Ziggler dropping Punk on the second rope was scary stuff, but Punk took it like a champ. Kicking Ziggler out of the ring, flat on his ass was a nice touch too. Ziggler catching Punk with an uppercut before he could hit the suicide dive was a nice touch too, it was like punching Bald Bull in the stomach mid-Bull Charge.

Much more balanced action as we return from break with Punk coming back from the brutal beating he was taking earlier. Punk starts to build momentum, but Johnny Ace makes his way to ringside to complain about a pad that came off a turnbuckle. Ziggler taps to the Anaconda Vice but the ref is distracted, Punk gets tossed into Laurinaitis, who pulls the rope down and causes Punk to get counted out. Ziggler is not the champion, but he's got two wins over Punk now and he stole the WWE Title! I do love a good stolen belt storyline.

The Bellas vs. Eve & Kelly Kelly next, but I'm too mesmerized by everyone's outfits to comment on the actual match. Eve & Kelly are the tangerine twins and the Bellas' outfits are defying the laws of physics. Bellas win, but seriously, how do they use the bathroom while wearing that?

And OMG, the end begins right now... and it's... creepy kids... creepy kids being creepy... and it's...

CHRIS JERICHO!!!!!!!!

NEUIGBRUIWBGRUIGBRUWGNUEIWNFOIWQDMQWOPDFMEWOPFGNEWRUIGBWRUGNIOWE!!e@#@%!!!!!%$&^%*()*

Chris Jericho is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he seems just as excited as me.

And he says... absolutely nothing. Instead, just slaps hands and walks away? Oh Jericho, you crafty bastard. The internets will twist themselves into pretzels trying to figure this out, but I assume that's the point. I'm going to refrain from speculating what it's all about because I think that would be disrespectful to Jericho. He never half-asses anything and is clearly crafting his story his way, just let it play out and enjoy. He's one of the few people who tries to trick those of us that think we're "in the know" without insulting our intelligence. Let's not insult his.

Main Event time! John Cena, Zack Ryder & Big Show vs. Jack Swagger, Mark Henry & ~~Kane~~, except Kane is refusing to participate in the match, so now it's a handicap match. LAME! LAME! LAME LAME LAME! Show and Henry get into a big brawl outside, chairs come into play and they both get... eliminated? What? When did this become an elimination match? Easy win for Cena and Ryder after that and now I'm just even more confused.

Cue Kane after the match, who emerges from the ring and takes out Cena, then turns his attention to Ryder. That is a good way to get Cena to embrace the hate, kill his Broski by dragging him under the ring straight to hell/Hornswoggle's house. Cena saves the day just in time, but a huge ball of flame erupts from Kane's hole (that sounded wrong) and that takes us to the copyright.

Well, there was a bit too much awkwardness at the end there. Jericho's bit was certainly intriguing, but it probably needed to be followed up with something a little more lighthearted and fun, instead, the finale just fell flat. Definitely more of a "Folks, we are out of time! Tune in next week!" than I thought it would be, but I think it worked. Complain all you want, but you know you're going to tune in next week to see what Jericho's up to.

It Begins

2012-01-02T15:30:00.004-05:00

You're gonna be so pissed when it turns out "It Begins" is actually a viral marketing campaign for a WWE Films remake of The Ring

SEVEN DAAAAAAYS....

Where's Waldo?

2012-01-02T12:35:00.000-05:00

Warning: Potential spoilers for "It Begins" ahead.

So if you've checked in with the IWC today, you've probably seen this picture going around "proving" that Chris Jericho is in Memphis or Nashville or Nantucket, somewhere near Raw tonight. I haven't seen any proof that it was taken today or that the airport in question is the airport they say it is, but either way, the internet is setting themselves up for disappointment.

If "It Begins" is Jericho, then all you're going to hear is "YOU SUCK WWE! YOU SHOULD'VE BROUGHT HIM IN ON THE CORPORATE JET! AND YOU SHOULD'VE INVESTED IN THE LATEST STEALTH TECHNOLOGY SO IT WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN PICKED UP ON RADAR! AND YOU SHOULD'VE BOUGHT ME TONS OF LIQUOR ON NEW YEAR'S EVE SO I WOULDN'T WAKE UP UNTIL 9PM TONIGHT SO I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SPOILERED!"

If it's not Jericho, you'll hear "YOU SUCK WWE! THE UNDERTAKER?! WHY SHOULD I GET EXCITED FOR THE RETURN OF ONE OF THE BIGGEST STARS YOU'VE EVER HAD WHEN HE HASN'T WRESTLED IN MORE THAN A YEAR?! WHY DID YOU LET ME GET EXCITED LIKE YOU DID LAST YEAR WITH 2.21.11 THAT TURNED OUT TO ALSO BE THE UNDERTAKER?! WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LEARN MY LESSON!"

And regardless of what happens, you'll hear people bitching about how the IWC is ruining wrestling because stuff like this happens every time a mystery promo airs. "YOU SUCK WWE! WRESTLING HAS BEEN RUINED! THEY CAN'T DO SURPRISES ANYMORE BECAUSE THE STUPID INTERNET RUINS EVERYTHING! JERICHO'S DEBUT IN 1999 WAS THE FINAL SURPRISE EVARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!"

Except it wasn't. Jericho's 1999 debut was not only known, WWE promoted it. They didn't come right out and say he was the one behind the Millennium Clock, but they had interviews with him on WWE.com before he actually showed up. I remember one video interview with him where they asked about rumors that he'd be "Chris Gericho" and it would be revealed he was behind G-TV (remember that?), he had a whole bit about how he was coming in as Chris Wippleman, the long lost son of Harvey and Bertha Faye would be his manager. The best part? Some people thought it was true and freaked out.

This is just a problem that's always going to be in wrestling, when you're not filming on a closed set, secrets are going to get out, no matter how many precautions you take. And now that everyone has a camera on them at all times, closed sets aren't even safe... how many unauthorized photos from The Dark Knight set have you seen? This is the era of Facebook, we've traded secrets for a new sense of closeness, but it's really nothing new for wrestling.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 2

2012-01-02T10:08:00.000-05:00

Big wrestling day today, but don't get mad at me if "It Begins" turns out to be "just" The Undertaker. I expect some Royal Rumble hype to begin as well, so let's do some of our own!

29. The Rock vs. Mankind - 1999
If there is any reason for a definitive I Quit match to exist, this would be the one people point to. When I was a teenager, this was the coolest thing I'd ever seen and Mankind was a god for being "so hardcore." Then I saw Beyond the Mat, Barry Blaustein's 1999 documentary about the wrestling business and I wasn't watching Mankind get bashed in the head anymore, it was Mick Foley. For some reason, it wasn't fun to watch Mick Foley get bashed in the head more than a dozen times while his wife and children are bawling their eyes out. It changed the match forever for me and Mankind was no longer "god," Mick Foley was an insanely dedicated person who would do anything to entertain his fans, which wasn't always a good thing... and that The Rock was a bit of an overzealous sociopath.

Royal Rumble Top 30 - January 1

2012-01-01T19:27:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year! 2012 is a relaunching year of sorts for Kick-Out!!, I know 2011 slowed down considerably, I had a really busy back half of the year and, well, WWE kinda killed my interest in wrestling for a while. But hey, we're heading into Rumble time, my favorite PPV of the year, and that means WrestleMania is on the way! So to get in the Rumble spirit and help get Kick-Out!! back to normal, I'm introducing the Royal Rumble Top 30!

I thought about ranking the Royal Rumble matches, then I thought about ranking non-Rumble matches that happened at Rumble PPVs, but then I thought screw it, let's make it fun and make it a big mix of Rumble-related stuff. That's my grand idea for Kick-Out's third year, let's just have some fun talking about wrasslin. Here we go!

30. Steve Austin vs. Vader, The Undertaker, Bret Hart, referees and Gorilla Monsoon
The 1997 Royal Rumble wasn't exactly star-studded and WWE had to pad the Rumble with competitors like Mil Mascaras, Cibernetico and The Latin Lover. It was a big rebuilding year for WWE and that weird limbo period between the New Generation and the Attitude Era, but change was definitely in the air.

Steve Austin was really beginning to emerge as something special, he won King of the Ring, took Bret Hart to the limit at Survivor Series and then became the ultimate badass in the 97 Royal Rumble. He eliminated ten guys and as far as I know, it was the first time in Rumble history that a guy cleared the ring and had to wait for the timer to tick down so he could get another opponent. Austin waiting on the top rope checking his imaginary watch was a nice touch, but the real brilliance came at the end of the match when he was eliminated, but the referees were too distracted, so he just got back in the ring and threw everyone out to win it.

Cheating was nothing new in wrestling, but rarely was someone ever so brazen about it. Austin flaunted the fact that he cheated, he didn't care about the rules, and regardless of the most controversial finish in the history of the match, he was the Royal Rumble winner, 'cause Stone Cold said so. It was the start of the anti-authority, fuck rules (or "ruck fules") mentality that still permeates WWE today.

You Wanted the Best in the World, You Got the Best in the World

2011-12-28T15:59:00.001-05:00

I love the band KISS. Sure, they're pretty terrible musicians, Gene Simmons is an unlikable douchebag and they're the biggest product whores in the history of entertainment, but they're also one of the best live bands I've ever seen. Despite line-up changes, endless gimmicks, and again, the fact that they're not very good, they've managed to remain a major act for nearly 40 years and are scheduled to put out their 20th album in early 2012.

But the band was not an overnight success. Three albums into their career, they were on the verge of losing their record deal, but at the same time, they were selling lots of tickets. Why were people paying money to see them perform live if they weren't throwing down a couple bucks for a record, even the record with the iconic "Rock and Roll All Nite" on it? Simple, their albums were a bit lifeless but their concerts were (and continue to be) amazing.

So the band released Alive, a double live album and the general public finally got a taste of what they were missing when they didn't go to the KISS show. Here we are now, 35 year, millions of records, movies, and condoms later and there's not a man, woman or child in the civilized world that hasn't seen that makeup.

It makes me think about all this uproar over CM Punk's ratings (or lack thereof) on last week's Raw. Ignoring the fact that it was a holiday week when most networks don't even bother running new programming, let's just accept for the sake of argument that Punk isn't getting the numbers on TV. Well, you wouldn't know it if you were just paying attention to live crowds, who have been going batshit insane for Punk since July.

So why isn't it reflected in the ratings? Because overnight successes are rare and when WWE tries to force it, it usually backfires. Steve Austin was no overnight success, he didn't even wrestle at the SummerSlam following his King of the Ring victory (unless you count a Free For All match against Yokozuna) and his first WWE Title reign didn't happen until almost two years later. Obviously wrestling moves much faster now than it did then, but CM Punk isn't going to turn ratings around all by himself in a month, especially with WWE's chaotic booking.

But he is resonating with the audience, judging from reaction alone, he's probably the #1 active wrestler in the company and his performances are consistently stellar. As long as WWE continues to let him do his thing and starts plastering his face on every piece of merchandise they sell, it should translate to ratings success. Just please, no CM Punk coffins.

Thanks to Andrew Southern for the graphic and Boss Lady Rae for letting me borrow him. Now, in the spirit of KISS, let's sell some shit!

Poll: Old School?

2011-12-27T19:57:00.002-05:00

This week's poll comes from my good buddy, Jason Mann - what constitutes "old school" wrestling? How recent can you get and still remain "old school," and if you think it's after 2000, you're a jerkface. Vote in the poll to your right and feel free to discuss it in the comments section. Also, we're currently discussing it on Twitter.

Have a suggestion for a future poll? Tell me on Twitter.

WWE Raw - December 26, 2011

2011-12-27T16:39:00.003-05:00

The last Raw of the year is usually uneventful. But who can forget last year's final Raw, featuring CM Punk responding to John Cena spilling his diet soda by taking over as the leader of Nexus? Everyone. Everyone can forget that. I think it all worked out for the better, but CM Punk's 2011 did start off a bit slow thanks to that. Yeah, he got some good matches out of Randy Orton (miracle worker), but was it worth it just to sell a couple Nexus shirts?

And of course, the final Raw of 2009 featured Timbaland! YEAH! And The Jericho Embargo, with Jericho being forced out of Raw after JeriShow lost the tag titles to DX. I honestly don't remember what that bit led to.

Anyway, my point is, I didn't go into last night's Raw with many expectations. With the early promise of a WWE Title match next week and the confirmation that "It Begins" will in fact, begin next week, that was pretty much confirmed. But that doesn't mean there wasn't fun to be had. Let's take a look at the show through the lens of the patented WOO/BOO! format.

WOO!

Someone's been watching All Japan tapes!
Okay, I have to admit it, Executive Vice President of Talent Relations, Interim Raw General Manager and Catering Coordinator John Laurinaitis is really starting to grow on me as a character. I don't see much of a point in rehashing Austin vs. McMahon (or Cena vs. Bischoff or Sgt. Slaugter vs. DX or everyone employed by TNA vs. everyone else employed by TNA), but Punk and Laurinaitis are having fun out there, which I enjoy. Johnny Ace wearing a CM Punk t-shirt over a full suit and doing Punk's whole entrance bit was absolutely hysterical. I groaned a little when Mr. Excitement set up the Gauntlet match (it's a poor man's handicap match), but it was a good way to showcase Punk for his hometown crowd. Too bad the ratings tanked last week for Punk, causing WWE to lose faith in him, otherwise, he probably would've had six matches.

It's The goddamn Undertaker, people
Regardless of who it's for, those videos seriously creep me out. I don't care what you do, putting someone in a corner with fast, constant cuts is terrifying. Let's say you have a grown man in a kangaroo suit with a small dog in his pouch, it would be funny if he were facing you, but turn him around and stick him in a corner? BLAIR WITCH! RUN!

SUCKAAAAAAAAAAA!
Booker T & Cody Rhodes had a hell of a match. I'm sure a lot of folks are mad that Booker picked up a clean, definitive win, but I don't see the harm. Booker looked fantastic, the guy seriously hasn't aged a day and he deserved a win after the hell Cody has given him. I thought this feud didn't have the legs to keep going, but if Booker keeps up with these kind of performances (and he doesn't keep getting jumped before every match they have), I think they could keep this fun after all. It should at least keep us entertained until Goldust swoops in to save his friend and set up a WrestleMania match with his brother. Right?

Through Hellfire and Brimstone, it's LIL JIMMY!
Honestly, this segment was in BOO! territory until R-Truth returned. John Cena's Chicago history lesson was awkward and Miz's interruption was a rare miss for the Most Must-See WWE Champion in History. Obviously they were trying to tease Kane throughout the night, but shoehorning John Cena into The Miz and R-Truth's issues just didn't work. But Truth's beatdown was glorious and him singing (screaming) "Auld Lang Syne" was absolutely marvelous. "Auld acquaintance gon' get got," thankfully, Truth isn't dropping the crazy shtick.

The reaction to Truth vs. Miz is why WWE doesn't do nuance though. "Who's the heel?!" was the question all throughout the Twitterverse, but does it matter? They're two big time Superstars who always get a big reaction, they'll be fine. Plus, it doesn't hurt that their match will probably happen at the Royal Rumble, when it's totally cool to do "experimental" stuff anyway.

CM Punk Needs Food Badly
The Gauntlet match turned out to be a lot of fun! Punk vs. Jack Swagger was solid (I still have no idea why they don't do more with Swaggie) and the attempted Vader Bomb-to-GTS was awesome, wish it would've connected, but a swift kick to the skull works too.

CM Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler was good and I thought they were holding back for Punk vs. Henry, but no, they were holding back for Punk vs. Ziggler next week with the WWE Title on the line! These two had an awesome match a few weeks ago, now add in the first WWE Title match of 2012 and I think we're in store for something special. Remember how Morrison and Miz tore the house down for the first match of 2011? I suspect we'll see something even better next week.

Ziggler is really turning into something special, even if his celebration was bordering on Santino levels of ridiculousness, but I'll forgive him as long as he keeps getting Mr. Perfect hair.

Come to the Dark Side, ~~Skywalker~~ Cena
Kane's promo last night was perhaps a bit (a lot) over the top, but I kinda loved it. Kane being the Emperor Palpatine to John Cena's Skywalker is a great idea and it all ties many threads together. It works for Cena's "Rise Above Hate" gimmick, the "will he or won't he?" heel turn, and it's a great direction for Kane. Kane's "tormented past" is often referenced, but it never really means anything in his stories other than "I'M MEAN! RAWR!!!" Here, he becomes the embodiment of hate in WWE, don't rise above it... embrace it! It's a bit simplistic, but perhaps a character like Kane should be simple. When WWE tries to add layers to Kane, we get things like Katie Vick and Edge throwing BW3's at Paul Bearer. "THE SPICY GARLIC BURNS MY EYES!"

Oh and Kane throwing up a literal firewall to stop Cena? Badass! Sorcery will always get a WOO! from me.

BOO!

You Know It... for about 25 seconds
You could argue that Zack Ryder is the most popular Superstar with WWE crowds right now, his reactions are second only to Punk's, so why did they stick him in a throwaway match with Eve against Tyson Kidd & Natalya? Don't get me wrong, I liked mixed tag matches and we haven't seen one in awhile, but this was a waste for all talents involved. A little build up (even just an argument backstage) would've gone a long way here, certainly more than John Cena's pep talk. And Tyson Kidd looks weird with hair!

David Cowabunga doesn't get to sue the Big Show
Big Show's assault on David Otunga was completely uncalled for. It was vicious, brutal and unfair, David Otunga isn't a wrestler! Have you seen him wrestle? Clearly he doesn't deserve this kind of attack! To avoid an expensive lawsuit, Johnny Ace instead set up a match where Big Show had one hand tied behind his back, which I don't think makes him less dangerous. There wasn't much of a match since Mark Henry interfered early and Daniel Bryan made the save, but there wasn't much to this. I appreciate Henry still being presented as dangerous, despite his injury though and I assume we'll get some sort of tag match on Smackdown... HOLLA!

Alberto Del Rio robs a disabled pimp
What the hell was Del Rio rolling around in, Huggy Bear's wheelchair? Obviously I don't want to see someone get injured, but I think some time off is the best thing that could've happened to Del Rio right now. In the span of a year, he's gone from the hottest new property in WWE to someone I'm totally bored with. He's fallen into that limbo that Sheamus did last year and needs a recharge, so hopefully the time off will help.

Overall

Yeah, there wasn't anything particularly memorable and it was a placeholder show for what is sure to be a big one next week, but it was harmless and enjoyable. It flew by and we got a couple great matches thanks to Booker vs. Cody and the Gauntlet. I don't think ending a show on a downer note like "CENA SUCKS!" was such a great idea, but I guess CM Punk should just be a better draw and he'll get to close shows more often. I kid, I kid!

Merry Christmas Kick-House!!

2011-12-25T11:57:00.001-05:00

Only good new Christmas song in the last 30 years!

Merry Christmas Eve-Eve!

2011-12-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

"He's not even from the North Pole!"

And just think, thanks to DiBiase's promo, this match basically served as hype for the arrival of Steve Austin.

CM Punk is your Superstar of the Year

2011-12-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

Well, that was easy:

WHO IS THE WWE SUPERSTAR OF THE YEAR?
CM Punk - 65%
Mark Henry - 10%
The Rock - 8%
John Cena - 6%
The Miz - 5%
Other - 4%
Alberto Del Rio - 2%
R-Truth - 0%

Hardly surprising, but I'm a bit bummed out Mark Henry didn't at least put up a fight. Punk is probably my personal pick and he was WWE's as well, but c'mon, Mark Henry was awesome! But Punk has the internet firmly on his side, so that obviously helped... and yeah, he kicked serious ass and had some incredible moments this year.

Way Too Early - Ho Ho Horrible edition

2011-12-22T06:04:00.001-05:00

Santa With Muscles trailer - Merry Happy!

Way Too Early

2011-12-21T07:32:00.000-05:00

"When the WWE Universe is ashes, you have my permission to die."

Pin-Up Strong

2011-12-20T13:25:00.001-05:00

Seen this?

That would be The Glamazon's face after getting in the ring with Alicia Fox. Apparently, Alicia's leg drop ended up being more of a boot drop, right on Beth's entire cheekbone.

I generally avoid saying things like "fire him" or "this person is a bad wrestler," because I find it disrespectful. I might say something like "Mason Ryan bores me," but I wouldn't say he's terrible in the ring. I don't know the nuances that went into the plotting of the match, how WWE wants him to perform, etc.

But seriously, Alicia Fox has no business being in a wrestling ring. I'm not saying they should fire her, she's got a great look and I loved her as DJ Gabriel's perky dance partner, but a wrestler, she is not. On numerous occasions, she's almost severely injured herself or someone else and last night shows there hasn't been any sort of improvement. It's not entirely her fault either, WWE can't decide if they want her to wrestle or not and the Divas are lucky to get two minutes of ring time a week anyway, so it's not like there's a lot of chance to improve. Still, she's going to seriously hurt someone and she needs to be removed from in-ring action before that happens.

WWE Raw - December 19, 2011

2011-12-19T21:05:00.018-05:00

Coming off a rock solid TLC PPV, it's the final Raw before Christmas. Dear Santa, please give me a show worth live blogging, I have to get up early tomorrow. Twitter, refresh, etc.

We kick things off with CM Punk announcing the winner of last night's main event, which coincidentally was CM Punk! Punk takes a few jabs at Johnny Ace and now introduces us to the winner of the United States Championship match, the new champion, Zack Ryder! Wow, Punk and Ryder being all buddy buddy? Someone's been reading my WWE '12 story!

But just to make this even more smarktastic, let's bring out the NEW World Heavyweight Champion, Daniel Bryan! I smell a six-man tag match brewing. Also, if you're having trouble walking around right now, it's because all the smarks just made the floor really sticky. Yes, that's an ejaculation joke, leave me alone, it's almost Christmas break, I'm not above working blue when I'm feeling a little lazy.

Punk hands the mic over to Zack Ryder, who does his thing (WWWYKI) really quick, then a hand off to MY BOI D-BRY! Bryan talks about how CM Punk was never supposed to be WWE Champion, but that he was never even supposed to be in WWE. Hey, five years ago I would've said the same thing. No offense to MY BOI D-BRY!

The Miz, Dolph Ziggler & Alberto Del Rio make their way onto the stage and it looks like we're going to see absolute bedlam! Or, if Taz is doing commentary, "pander-monium." Zack Ryder does his somersault plancha right on Ziggler's head and holy shit, it's NASTY~!!!! Remember Edge's debut in 1998 when he almost killed that one guy in Los Boriquas? Yeah, it was just like that... gross.

I hope Ziggler's okay, especially since he's going to be in that six-man tag match I mentioned earlier. Should be an awesome match, as long as Ryder doesn't do that move again, someone get the heating pad!

And just when things were starting off so well, our opening contest is a Randy Orton match. Blurg. To make matters worse, it's a match you may have just paid $50 for, a rematch against Wade Barrett. Just so we're clear, I did not pay $50 for that match, I deliberately subtract $5 from my cable bill every month I order a PPV with an Orton match on it. I'm building up quite a negative balance at this point, but when I meet Orton, I'll make him float me the money. It's only right if he pays me back for the hours of my life I've lost to Zee Vipah.

The fact that I'm talking about my cable bill should probably say something about this match. No offense to Wade or anything, but plenty of offense to Randall. Luckily, just as Randy is going to "that place" (seriously, where the hell is this place?), Barrett jams a thumb in his eye and takes a DQ loss. Wade will shrug it off, stabbing Orton in the eye is totally worth the L. After the match, Barrett Wastelands Orton through a table. I approve! Do it again!

Beth Phoenix vs. Alicia Fox... and wow, what a trainwreck. Fox beats Beth in seconds and this is how desperate WWE is for female competitors. Alicia Fox wishes everyone a "FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXAY HOLIDAY" and I have no idea why they thought Philly would be a good place to do this as she gets booed out of the building. Awful, awful, awful.

Sheamus vs. Jinder Mahal up next and in two segments, WWE is highlighting the two least interesting people on the roster, Fox and Mahal. I rarely like to outright badmouth performers, but Fox is dangerous and Mahal is the traditional "guy on Smackdown who will never go anywhere" (ala Sylvan Grenier, Mordecai and Kizarny) and has overstayed his welcome. Another glorified squash for Sheamus that does nothing for anyone involved.

WOW WOWB WIK WIK WIK WIK WIK WOWRB WOB WOK WOK WOK! Okay, Jesus Christ, I'll order the WWE Network, just stop yelling at me in binary.

Hey guys, it's John Cena, I almost didn't recognize him after he's been gone for so long, considering he missed the first PPV he was eligible first in over eight years. Cena's willing to let bygones be bygones with Kane if he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's something you don't see in wrestling very often, "Hey, you wanted to make a statement? That's kewl, just don't do it again."

Ah, but John Cena's got a much bigger problem right now, MARK HENRY! Philly welcomes him with a "SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!" chant, must be some commuters from Hersey, and Henry tells Cena he would've murderlized him last week if Kane hadn't got to him first.

Oh no, they said his name three times, through hellfire and brimstone, it's KANE! Cena hits a big clothesline, sending Kane over the top rope, but he lands on his feet old school style. Kane hits a couple of those awesome throat thrust chops and then holds Cena down on the announce table with his hand over his mouth. You know that scene in I Am Legend when Will Smith has to kill the dog? (spoiler alert), it was kinda like that. Awesome visual with Cena bleeding from the mouth, looking like his lips were ripped off, but why did Kane stop there? He should've put him through the damn table!

What happens when you put six of the hottest stars in the company in one match? An Usos match on Raw. Jimmy & Jey up against Primo & Epico and kudos once again to WWE at least trying to do something with the tag division. Primo & Epico pick up the win in a short, but decent match, and as long as they keep it up, things could get interesting. I'm not gonna hold my breath just yet though.

Backstage, we're starting Royal Rumble hype with Cody Rhodes. Loving it, I'm always all for random interviews with various guys who want to win the Rumble. Santino makes an appearance with his Cobra in a box... and he calls Cody "Coby," which is hilarious.

Santino Marella vs. Coby Rhodes is conveniently our next match too, and seriously, Cody's new theme music is so awesome. Sure, it's a total Gravity Kills ripoff, but it's totally badass. Cody picks up an easy win, but sadly he doesn't use that NASTY knee to the face that he busted out last night.

Alrighty kids, I'm tapping out on the live blog tonight. I'll finish up tomorrow morning, but I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. I'm going to go ahead an make an easy prediction for the main event though: fun.

Oh and look, it's starting now. Like I said, it's gonna be fun... I don't know if anything else will even be necessary to say. Good Raw showcasing a lot of new faces too, I'm pleased with tonight's show. Til tomorrow, my friends

AHHHHH!!!! CREEPY KID VIDEO! JUST INTERRUPTED DEL RIO'S ENTRANCE!

***UPDATE - December 20***

And we're back. I told you that match was gonna be fun. Do I even need to write anything up? It was a standard WWE "here's a six-man tag match, enjoy" that they do so well. These matches are rarely something you'll look back on in a year and say "remember that awesome six-man tag?" but thanks to the participants, you just might with this one.

I LOVED the entrance through the crowd stuff, Zack Ryder should keep doing that since he uses the Flip camera when he comes to the ring anyway. Seems like an easy way to get him to interact with the crowd and I think that's his big selling point, the audience feels more responsible for his push than most guys on the roster, so it would give off a great "people's champ" vibe... even if no one can ever use that nickname ever again, thanks Rock!

Also love that is was Daniel Bryan who picked up the win by making Alberto Del Rio tap out. Del Rio's been a thorn in D-Bry's side for awhile and the champ needed to make a big statement that he's legit after the MITB cash-in. I can't think of anything more definitive than that and if they keep it up, my worries about Bryan's reign should subside.

The whole post-match celebration was fun too, it really got you thinking that Punk's whole "change" thing might be true and WWE could be moving in a different direction. When's the last time every champion in WWE was an internet favorite? Punk and Bryan holding the big belts at the same time is something I never thought I'd see and I'm just going to sit back and enjoy this as long as I can.

Unfortunately, Michael Cole made that difficult by going completely over the top with his absurdity, which is a shame because he was fairly tolerable throughout the previous parts of the show... I guess he was resting up. My buddy Scotty Avylla made a great point that if Lawler wasn't in autopilot half the time, he could balance Cole out, but I thought Lawler did a fairly decent job during the main event. Perhaps I just have a soft spot for the King though.

Overall, an incredibly refreshing Raw. Lots of new(er) names were featured all over the place, the champs looked awesome and this Kane stuff is the most intriguing thing they've done with John Cena in awhile. Really fun show and worth checking out if it's sitting on your DVR.

WWE TLC 2011

2011-12-18T20:03:00.035-05:00

Ah what the hell, let's live blog a PPV. Refresh your page for ongoing coverage and follow me on Twitter for my stream of consciousness.

And we're kicking things off with Dolph Ziggler vs. Zack Ryder with the United States Championship on the line! I'm sure many folks want to see Ryder pick up the win tonight, but I really think he has the momentum to keep this going to WrestleMania. I could use the extra three months to promote the #3 most downloaded story on WWE '12, Zack Ryder vs. The USA!

Also, I love, love, LOVE what this is all doing for the United States Title. Ziggler's the longest-reigning champion in WWE, Ryder is a red hot challenger and he doesn't just want to beat up Dolph Ziggler, he wants to win the US Title. When's the last time they really pushed a secondary title as a prize that someone really, really wanted?

Crowd is electric for this one too, the perfect choice for the opener. Ryder's no slouch in the ring either, I think people forgot how good he was in ECW, but Dolph Ziggler is killing it right now. The guy is an artist and the ring canvas is his... well, canvas. Showing shades of Scott Steiner now, he's putting his toes under Ryder's back and is doing sit-ups! Ultra Dick Move!

Ziggler's showboating didn't save him from the Broski Boot though! Vickie saved the US Title by putting Ziggler's foot on the ropes, but there's the ref with THE EJECTION! I love me a manager ejection.

Fantastic back and forth action now, BEAUTIFUL dropkick from Ziggler, a true HOLY SHIT! moment with Ryder hitting a Super Hurricanrana - RYDERCANRANA! - ROUGH RYDER NOW! ONE... TWO... THREE! NEW CHAMPION! I was still hoping for a WrestleMania win, but a HELL of a match and if anyone in WWE deserves this moment right now, it's Zack Ryder. He earned it. His dad going nuts at ringside was really sweet.

Impromptu Tag Team Title match now with Air Boom defending against Primo & Epico. Man, I really haven't been watching Smackdown... I honestly didn't know Primo still worked for WWE, nor did I know Epico existed.

And even though I have no idea what the background is to this match, it's going rather well. Team-O is pretty good and WWE needs more "real" teams anyway, so I'm cool with it. And as of 8:29 pm, Primo has a PPV payday and John Cena doesn't. Let that sink in for a minute.

Fun back and forth action all over the place, Bourne hits a dive to the outside, Kofi connects with Trouble in Paradise and Air Boom successfully defends. A rock solid match and hopefully it's leading to more good news for the tag division.

Backstage, casual racism with Teddy Long & Hornswoggle. You know that part in Cee-Lo Green's "Fuck You" when he cries "WHYYYYYYYY?!" over and over again? This segment was like that. Also, it was like the part where he says "fuck you."

Randy Orton vs. Wade Barrett up next in a Tables Match, but on this PPV, you can just call it a T-Match. Let's go Barrett!!!

Sorry, stepped away for a minute to make horrible jokes on Twitter. Returning to the live blog now to Barrett beating the hell out of Orton. Sadly, Wasteland off the apron through a table outside did not connect, but maybe he can try it again off the top of the TitanTron. Instead, Barrett's going for a move off the top, but Orton hits the RKO through the table for the win. Son of a bitch! C'mon Wade, you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't kick to Hester and you certainly don't dive off the top rope at Randy stupid Orton. As always, Orton gets lucky and no one cares... the Barrett Barrage will recover!

Backstage, a five minute segment with Teddy Long (cleaning up tables takes awhile) just to set up Sheamus vs. Jack Swagger. Sigh, it's like asking Santa for an iPad and getting an eyeTAB.

Speaking of things that weren't on my Christmas list, Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix for the Divas Championship now. Surely there are other women for title matches, right? If not, HIRE SOME.

Nice little exchange with Beth missing a leg drop off the top, Kelly almost landing on her head when Beth blocks the Rocker Dropper (I'm old school), and Kelly reversing the Glam Slam into the victory roll. That ain't stopping the Glamazon this time though, Beth kicks out and reverses a hurricanrana into the Alley-Oop (old school x2!) for the win. Blah match, but a good ending. Get Beth some real competition now.

It's on, it's off, it's on, it's off, it's on! Booker T vs. Cody Rhodes is happening... just kidding, it's off. Cody attacks Booker before the match and Booker is so hurt, he walks to the back on his own. LAME!

Just shit or get off the pot with this feud already. Better yet, bring Goldust back to save Booker and let the Rhodes Bros. go at it at WrestleMania.

And it's time for what is bound to be a match so ugly, you're going to need to ice your knees when it's over, Triple H vs. Kevin Nash in a "Sledgehammer Ladder Match." I prefer "Sledgeladder Match," but if we want to be precise, it's a Stairway to Hell match. Speaking of Stairway to Hell, Justin Credible was kind of a Kliq member too, right? Maybe he'll do a run-in here? Would it be anymore out of place than this match even happening in the year 2011?

So far, the match is exactly what you'd expect: an ad for Nuprin (little, yellow, different) with the most melodramatic commentary in WWE history. "THEY WERE BEST FRIENDS, KING! IT'S SO SAD!" But, Triple H busting out a figure four ladder lock and the old HHH Irish-whip-into-the-corner-flippity-doo were both really cool.

JR coined the phrase "bowling shoe ugly" for this one and what makes it even worse is the fact that it's just not that exciting. I expected these guys to at least punch the shit out of each other since they're best buddies and all, but so far, it's all been very delicate.

Of course, I say that and Kevin Nash then falls off the top of a ladder through a table. There's something you haven't seen in an ever. Triple H gets the sledge and goes mildly ballistic. Kevin Nash falls out of the Pedigree (literally), Triple H hits it successfully the second time, then tells Nash to suck it and hits him in the face with the sledge for the win. Five bucks says Triple H thinks the "4-Life?/SUCK IT!" moment was the "I'm sorry, I love you" of 2011. Oh, I kid The Game... but seriously, that match was the wrestling equivalent of standing in the shower and waiting for hot water to come on.

Sheamus vs. Jack Swagger is the "cool down" match for Kevin Nash vs. Triple H... unfortunately, the entire PPV has been a cool down match after the opener. For the life of me, I can't figure out why this match is on the show. Don't get me wrong, I love Sheamus and Swagger, and I know Sheamus is hot right now, but who wants to see this on PPV? This could be a really fun Smackdown match, even Hour 1 main event worthy, but on PPV? People are paying $50 to watch this. People in the crowd paid hundreds of bucks for a couple decent seats to watch a glorified squash. Why bother?

Finally, something good, Big Show vs. Mark Henry in a chairs match, where chairs aren't just legal, they're ALLOWED! Big Show throws dozens of chairs into the ring, ECW style, Mark Henry walks out of this chairs match because he's getting too old for this sit, but instead he gets some NASTY! shots across the back. But hey Big Show, if you're going to dish it out, you better be ready to take it because somebody's gonna git it. Mark Henry is DESTROYING Big Show's back with steel chairs, but Big Show punches him right through the chair, NEW CHAMPION?!

The fuck?! NO! NO! NO! NO! I love ya Big Show, but Mark Henry needed to stay unstoppable through WrestleMania! Oh good, Mark Henry's gonna Hall of Pain his ass! And holy shit, DANIEL BRYAN'S CASHING IN! ONE-TWO-THREE! NEW CHAMPION AGAIN?! But dude... your first defense is gonna be against the Big Show, good luck with that.

I'm kinda split on this. I'm getting a little tired of the MITB cliché cash-in, Daniel Bryan was the perfect guy to hold off until WrestleMania, and now he has to turn, right? Bryan said the only reason he tried to cash-in on Henry was because Henry did him wrong and he wanted revenge, but then he screwed The Big Show instead, that's not cool. On the other hand, DANIEL BRYAN IS WORLD CHAMPION, which makes all other arguments invalid. I'm nervous about it, but c'mon, Bryan's World Champ, I gotta just shut up and smile tonight.

Oh look, Cody Rhodes vs. Booker T is happening in a special "Tables, Ladders and Blue Balls" match. Fun match, probably would've been a lot more fun without all the silly stuff earlier, but I guess they're going to keep it going? Maybe not, after that NASTY!! knee to the face, I don't know if Booker will ever want to get back in the ring. Holy shit, forget Cross Rhodes, Cody, that's your new finisher. Cody vs. Bryan, WrestleMania main event, make that happen.

Main Event time! CM Punk vs. The Miz vs. Alberto Del Rio in a TLC match for the WWE Championship. Thankfully, the title is hanging above the ring, so it is not pinfall/submission like I thought Cole said on Monday.

Del Rio and Miz wisely teaming up, but of course that doesn't last long. NASTY back suplex on an open chair by Miz on Punk. And now we enter the part of the review where these matches become really hard to write about without being a play-by-play guy. Bodies fly everywhere, carnage ensues, guys on the ground for a long time, Punk gets handcuffed to a ladder. Wait, what?

Yep, Ricardo Rodriguez handcuffed CM Punk to a ladder, pretty slick little moment and Punk manages to free himself and save the WWE Title by breaking the ladder with his educated feet. LIKE A BOSS.

Del Rio is on the outside now after his ding-ding got dropped on the top rope, Ricardo Rodriguez trying to get the belt for Del Rio, and then Miz & Punk tip him off the ladder through a table outside the ring. Yeah, a "HOLY SHIT!" chant is permitted after that.

But Miz is a crafty bastard and handcuffs CM Punk to the middle rope! How does Punk respond? HE TAKES THE ROPE OFF! Say it with me now, "LIKE A BOSS!"

Three man scramble up two ladders, Punk almost gets it, Miz pulls him down, GTS for his troubles! PUNK RETAINS with handcuffs still on! What a fun main event.

Well... that was an interesting night. First off, when's the last time John Cena was healthy and didn't make a single appearance on a PPV? 2003? Crazy. Also, I'm a little surprised Kane didn't come out during or after the main event and kill everyone, but I guess he's got his sights specifically on Cena right now. I'm cool with that.

Now, as for the PPV, it was definitely worth watching. Ryder & Ziggler tore the house down in the opener, Daniel Bryan won his first World Title (even if I'm a little iffy on it... poor Mark Henry... poor Big Show), and the main event was a blast.

On the other hand, Triple H vs. Kevin Nash was like season two of Glee: an overhyped vanity project. Randy Orton had no business beating Wade Barrett, there was quite a bit of filler, some terrible backstage segments (even if they were just to clean up the ringside area), and even though Cody Rhodes is a Superstar, the evening-long "will they or won't they" bullshit was worse than nine seasons of wondering if Mulder and Scully were gonna do it.

Final score for TLC 2011: FanMail. A few hits, but it wasn't CrazySexyCool.

Kick-Out!! featured by THQ!

2011-12-15T17:29:00.003-05:00

This is huge, huge news. Today, we've been featured on THQ's website for my WWE '12 storyline I created featuring Zack Ryder!

Check out the full article here"

This storyline was created by WWE Games community member, "Razor," who owns and operates the blog "KickoutWrestling.com." He's been running the site for years out of his love for sports entertainment, and has created a fantastic storyline for all of you to enjoy. Here's his summary:

"Zack Ryder is awesome. He's a WWE Superstar, hangs out with Snooki and spikes his hair. There's just one thing that continues to elude him: the WWE United States Championship held by the devious Dolph Ziggler. When Ryder finally gets his wish, a shot at the title, he finds out there's just one small catch thanks to Ziggler's evil legal counsel, David Otunga: he has to beat every former United States Champion thrown his way. Join Zack Ryder and his BB4E (Best Broski 4-Ever), Santino Marella, on a quest fit for a true champion. Can Zack topple the evil ex-champions and bring the US Title home to the L-I? Play "Zack Ryder vs. The US" (available now on Xbox Live) to find out!"

A huge thanks to THQ's own Marcus Stephenson for setting it all up. Hell of a guy and a longtime friend of the site... I'm so thankful to all the great guys over there for this. How freaking awesome is this?!

Zack Ryder has to play it now, right? We have the official seal of approval!

Poll: Superstar of the Year

2011-12-14T19:21:00.000-05:00

Hey, haven't done one of these in awhile. But since I'm aiming for a 2012 relaunch of Kick-Out!!, I wanted to start slowly reintroducing some of my favorite features that have gone by the wayside.

Today's poll is simple enough, who do you think is Superstar of the Year? Don't see your favorite? Vote "other" and tell us who it is in the comments section. Here are my list of nominees:

CM Punk - Obviously, he was the most talked about Superstar of the year.
Mark Henry - 15 years to get this point and Henry undoubtedly has made the most of it. He's been undeniably awesome.
The Rock - Perhaps a controversial pick, but he almost single-handedly sold WrestleMania without even wrestling. Then he actually wrestled at Survivor Series and tore the house down.
John Cena - Because he's John Cena, he's still the top dog.
Alberto Del Rio - Royal Rumble, a WrestleMania main event, two-time WWE Champion, etc.
The Miz - He beat John Cena at WrestleMania. I don't give a shit how he did it, he did it.
R-Truth - Seriously. Who provided more pure entertainment this year than R-Truth?

Get voting!

WWE Raw - December 12, 2011

2011-12-12T20:04:00.016-05:00

Hey, it's a three-hour Slammy Awards edition of Monday Night Raw, I have to live blog, right?! Well... at least for part of the show. Let's have some fun.

Raw kicks off with Booker T & Hornswoggle presenting the "Tell Me I Didn't Just See That" award. Hornswoggle looks like C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man and is somehow even more offensive. Your nominees for this award include: JR's funky dance moves, Santino almost winning the Royal Rumble, The Miz impersonating The Rock and R-Truth just being R-Truth. Your winner?

JIM ROSS!

Although R-Truth totally deserved it, it's about time JR got something for his troubles this year. And his acceptance speech includes the word "jiggy," so it's totally worth it. Unfortunately, it looks like this is a vehicle to continue his rivalry with Michael Cole. And now Booker T is suggesting a "rap off" between the two. Oh for crissakes. "Rap off?" WWE writers, you're so white.

So yeah, it's as bad as it sounds and possibly worse. Then JR does a Spinaroonie, which I will forever refer to as the Beef Jerkaroonie. Try JR's beef jerky sometime, it's delicious... even if "try JR's beef jerky" sounds slightly suspect. Aaaaaaaanyhoo, JR wins the segment for having a great sense of humor, but we lost 18 minutes of our lives watching that. When you're laying on your deathbed, think of what you could've done with that time. You could've watched a good portion of your favorite sitcom episode. You could've ate a delicious cheese spread. You could've masturbated... twice. Sorry buddy.

Now Mick Foley & Ted DiBiase (the good one), are out to present the Holy $#!@ Moment of the Year. By the way $#!@ stands for shit. C'mon, you got Mick Foley and The Million Dollar Man in the same building and you don't open with them?! Anyway, our nominees include Sheamus murdering Sin Cara, Evan Bourne hitting the SSP off a ladder outside, Mark Henry's ring imploding Superplex and Randy Orton hitting Christian with the RKO on steel stairs. The winner is...

Mark Henry & The Big Show! Obvs.

Big Show accepts the award, even though he was the victim of that move, but hey, The Man™ is always holding Mark down.

Wade Barrett vs. Big Show winds up being our opening contest and... the majority of it takes place during commercial. Bummer, I genuinely wanted to see these guys kick the $#!@ out of each other, I think they'd have a fun brawl. Big Show got to do his famous "I PUNCH CHAIRS! RAWWWWR!" bit, which was pretty cool. He also broke a table with his bare hands and I think between those two spots, he sliced his eyebrow open. Big Show is awesome.

Next up, the "Pipe Bomb of the Year," presented by THE ROAD DOGG?! WHAT THE WHAT?! The Road Dogg?! WTF! Thought he was dead. LoL.

Okay, full disclosure, I forgot about that line until they showed it in the video package, along with all the other funny lines this year. And I totally forgot about Confederate R-Truth, who should win on that alone.

But of course, it goes to CM Punk, who gives us an awesome Johnny Ace video package, complete with Radtacular 1980s Dynamic Dudes footage. Best use of 80s footage at the Slammy Awards since Vince's "STAND BACK!"

And now LITA is here for the "Divalicious Moment of the Year." And in a year with moments like Natalya's double Sharpshooter, Beth Phoenix kicking everyone's ass and Kharma's debut, the award goes to Kelly Kelly's victory roll. Oh please.

Santino and The Bellas are out next to present OMG! Moment of the Year. I'm not sure how that's different from the Holy Poopies Moment of the Year, but apparently it's the more SUPER SERIOUS award. Your nominees are: Triple H Tombstoning The Undertaker, Rock Rock Bottoming John Cena at WrestleMania, the Superstar Walk Out that I never wanted to be reminded of ever again, and CM Punk leaving with the WWE Championship. Your winner?

HHH Tombstoning The Undertaker, because The Rock isn't here, the Walk Out was the worst WWE story in years and CM Punk already won one. Oh and it's time for Triple H to be on the show. Yay? In case you forgot, Triple H is a TOTAL badass, but he's also got a quirky little sense of humor, but he's ANGRY! RAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!! Hunter, Hearst and Helmsley are each their own distinct personalities. Oh and he has to bully Santino at the top of the stage for funsies. Let the eye rolling commence.

Here to present for "Trending Star of the Year," David Otunga & Tony motherf'n Atlas! But the four nominees will compete in a Fatal Four Way later tonight and whoever... trends the most? Wins? I think? The nominees are Cody Rhodes, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler and Zack Ryder. At least the match should be awesome.

And that match is on right now, Zack Ryder vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler! And surprise, surprise, WWE is giving it time and it has been fan-friggin-tastic so far. Shocking what happens when you let four hard working, very talented wrestlers go out there and do their thing. They've gotten two commercial breaks so far and they're totally killing it.

Awesome, awesome match and easily a nominee for one of my personal awards, the TV Match of the Year. Ziggler won the match, but Ryder won the Slammy... and got a Zig Zag for his troubles. Can't wait to see these guys lock up on Sunday, but Ryder deserves to win the US Championship at WrestleMania. C'mon WWE, you can carry this story for another three months, Ryder has plenty of a momentum and charisma to pull it off. Plus, it'll be great advertising for my WWE '12 story! Download it!

Christian returns to present "Game Changer of the Year," and he's out on crutches and in a neckbrace to ask for one more title match. He's like a meth addict looking for a fix. Anyhoo, the nominees are Triple H and Vince McMahon for the three week boss change, Edge for retiring, Kevin Nash for being surprisingly awesome and John Cena & The Rock for planning a WrestleMania match a year out. The winner...

The Rock & John Cena. Another obvious choice and I'm still impressed they've managed to keep this story simmering this whole time. Cena's out to accept the award and calls for The Rock to join him on stage, but of course we all know that's not happening. And LOL to wrestling fans, booing the guy who actually showed up and cheering for the guy who couldn't even send a message via satellite.

Alrighty kids, I'm tapping out on the live portion of this live blog. I'll review the final hour of Raw tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to comment and leave your thoughts on the show. Thanks for understanding my need for sleep.

*And we're back! Now with added past tense!

CM Punk & Randy Orton vs. The Miz & Alberto Del Rio was our 10pm main event and I'm loving the addition of The Miz to the Punk/Del Rio feud. Miz deserves to be back in the title picture, he can have an excellent war of words with Punk and the two have been kept surprisingly far apart since their brief ECW feud that no one remembers anyway.

Match was pretty typical for the Raw main eventer tag team mishmash, except this time the bad guys actually got to win. Wade Barrett making Orton look like a chump is never going to upset me and the two challengers looked very dangerous at the end of the match. Although did I hear Cole say the TLC match on Sunday will be pinfall and submission? Lame!

Another Kane promo and I'm pretty sure I saw an image of John Cena shatter in the mirror. One, two... Kane is coming for you...

Vickie Guerrero & Goldust were out next for the A-Lister of the Year Award, which went to Snooki. Other nominees included The Muppets, Hugh Jackman and Cee-Lo Green, and while The Muppets totally should've won, I have no issue with Snooki in WWE. Sure, Jersey Shore is terrible and it's a sad commentary on our culture that she's famous, but she did well in WWE. Her match at WrestleMania was harmless fun and did exactly what she needed to do, so kudos to the Snookster.

Oh and Goldust totally needs to get involved in this Booker T/Cody Rhodes feud. Goldust retiring at Mania against Cody would be... gold. Sorry.

Sheamus vs. Jinder Mahal almost got me to turn off the TV and just go to bed, but luckily I held on. More on that in a minute.

Rey Mysterio returned to present Superstar of the Year, which rightfully went to CM Punk. Aside from Mark Henry or perhaps even The Rock, no one else should have even been in consideration. 2011 was Punk's year: he did his damnedest to sell Nexus t-shirts through WrestleMania, got watchable matches out of Randy Orton, had more awesome matches with Rey Mysterio, and then everything he did between Money in the Bank and today. It was Punk's year... but a serious argument could be made for Mark Henry, just sayin.

Johnny Ace accepted for Punk, but I'm still not sure where they're going with this. Austin vs. McMahon it's not... it's not even Cena vs. Bischoff. The evil authority figure and his struggles getting the top star to conform to the rules has run its course. Punk's doing his best with it and the Dynamic Dudes video was a fun nod to old school fans, but I'd much rather see him mixing it up with The Miz.

Another cryptic "It begins" video with the creepy little boy saying "she holds the mystery of my arrival, of my rebirth..." and let the theories continue! I've seen some pretty ridiculous ones, none quite up there with "it says "STING" in the smoke of 2.21.11!" but close. Just for an example, I've seen someone suggest it's The Undertaker & Michelle McCool, because WWE would totally ruin Taker's cred by having him hang out with the "FLAWLESS!" chick. Other guesses include Vince & Stephanie McMahon and Brock Lesnar & Sable. Seriously.

My guess? It's a WWE hype video, it only has to make as much sense as they want it to, which could be none at all. It's fun to speculate, but don't get yourself all hyped up when and then get pissy when it turns out to be The Undertaker doing his usual thing. The only reason I'm not 100% convinced it's The Undertaker is that I doubt he has a YouTube account. Hey, maybe Tori is coming back with Kane!

Speaking of which, I did not see the early Kane return coming, nor did I think he'd actually come back with the mask. I've been mocking the idea of the mask making Kane cool again, which has been a universally accepted opinion in the community since he took the thing off, but I was wrong... it was awesome. In my head, it just seemed like it would be a "BUT SHE'S GOT A NEW HAT!" stunt, but if there's one thing WWE can almost always do right, it's make a first impression.

The whole reveal was done perfectly, with WWE basically saying "oh you want a mask? Here's TWO, fuckers!" made Kane look positively badass. The welding mask/Predator combo was creepy looking, then the reveal of the new, Michael Myers-inspired classic Kane mask totally played at my horror fan heartstrings. You clever bastards, you always know exactly how to sucker me in. Sure, it's still Kane and the character has been "just there" for years and I don't know if that will change, but damn, that was cool.

And oh yeah, John Cena vs. Mark Henry was happening along with all this, but it was clearly just a backdrop for Kane's big return. I commented on Twitter last night that it was bizarre for Cena to not have a match or story heading into TLC, but it looks like he'll have his hands full with Kane before we get on the Road to WrestleMania. I can live with that.

This was one of those Raws that wasn't good, but gave you just enough to actually enjoy it. The Fatal Four Way was a phenomenal match, the Slammys were fun (if predictable) and Kane provided one of those moments that was cool enough to get you to ignore the preceding 120 minutes and remember the show for the ending. Nice save, WWE.

Kick-Out!! invades WWE '12!

2011-12-12T19:04:00.000-05:00

FINALLY!

After weeks of trying, I was finally able to upload my created story onto Community Creations in WWE '12! If you're an Xbox Live user, feel free to download Zack Ryder vs. The USA, my tale of Zack Ryder's quest to get a shot at the United States Championship. I'm really proud of it, as proud as one can be as an almost 30-year-old man writing glorified fan fiction for a video game. But seriously, it's a fun story, I got a kick out of writing it (get it?) and hopefully it'll make you laugh a few times as well.

You can search for it using the following keywords:

Zack Ryder
WWWYKI
kickout

And, since I think he'd enjoy it, tell Zack Ryder about it. I think he would play it and totally make me Broski of the Week, so help a brother out!

WWE '12 review

2011-12-01T08:34:00.013-05:00

When done right, wrestling games can zap more of my time than just about any other type of video game. And while I managed to sink 100+ hours into epics like Fallout 3 or the Dragon Age series, the time spent with those games pales in comparison to the time spent with classic wrestling games. I kept my Dreamcast hooked up for almost ten years just so I could play Fire Pro D, complete with a boot disc, a super-sized memory card and a 50-page binder of English translations. My PS2 is still hooked up too, partially because it's an awesome system and I still have way too many games to finish, but whenever I turn it on, it's to play Fire Pro Returns.

When I was a teenager, me and a buddy went through renaming and redesigning every wrestler in WCW/nWo Revenge. Why? Mainly because we thought it was funny, but it kept us playing the game for years. I tried to keep No Mercy up to date for several years as well, making new characters and changing outfits for existing Superstars to wrestlers who had a similar fighting style. I still have my Nintendo 64 for this exact reason.

But the Smackdown games have never given me that kind of feeling. I've never rushed to hook up my PS1 (or PSX for you cool 90s kids) so I could play Smackdown 2: Know Your Role. In fact, the only WWE games in my entire collection right now are Raw for the SNES, No Mercy for the N64 and WWE '12 for Xbox 360.

There's never been a Smackdown game that I didn't trade-in within a year. It's not that they're bad games (though some of them are), they're just the video game equivalent of fast food. Sounds great at the time, delicious at the first bite, but when I'm done, I regret doing that to myself. Sometimes I'm downright satisfied (SvR 2006), sometimes it's like getting soggy french fries and a hair in my burger (Just Bring It). For the most part though, the Smackdown series has been comfort food, I get my fix and move on.

But I was very excited when I heard about WWE '12, the name change alone had me excited. I've wanted them to do this for years, mainly because "WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010: It's Your World Now - Featuring ECW; While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood" was pretty ridiculous. So it's an exciting new direction for the series, right? Well... kinda.

A lot of the little tweaks they've brought to the series over the years are near perfection. The presentation is excellent, it does look like I'm watching WWE TV, at least during regular one-on-one matches. The more bells and whistles you add to a match, the more the presentation suffers. Play a Money in the Bank or Royal Rumble match though? It looks like an old Smackdown game. To be fair, I'm sure that's a design choice to keep things from getting too hectic during these matches, but it does hurt the immersion. Running up a ladder and clotheslining a guy off another just doesn't pack the same punch in WWE '12 as it would watching the Money in the Bank PPV.

And that lack of punch is a problem throughout the entire game, there's just no "oomph." I played a Royal Rumble match with Sheamus and was throwing Irish Curse backbreakers all over the place, but there was barely any sound. At the risk of sounding morbid, I want bone-crunching mayhem, I want the satisfaction of hurting somebody. Even with its primitive graphics, there's never been anything more satisfying in wrestling games as seeing "CRITICAL!" pop up in Fire Pro. Top rope moves suffer a lot from this too, they're still really stiff and way too fast, they just don't look right. This might be a little thing to you, and it didn't really bother me in the PS1 or even PS2 days, but it's bordering on inexcusable.

The AI has been improved though, which is impressive because there really hasn't been much of an AI improvement for any games between the PS2/Xbox/GameCube transition to PS3/360/Wii. It's more aggressive, smarter and tougher and that's something this series has desperately needed from day one. It's not perfect, there's still too much reliance on reversals, but I figure someone out there will find some decent slider settings eventually and we'll be able to balance it out ourselves.

Matches are much more fun to play as well, there is a real sense of pacing and blended with the advanced AI, it's a very noticeable improvement for the game. But again, it starts to fall apart in multi-man matches. The new move interruption feature isn't as intrusive as I thought it would be, but it can still be a pain and there have been a lot of instances of just bouncing off a guy. It feels clumsy at points, but not nearly as much as in years past. The new (old) control scheme is nice to have back, I don't really mind one way or the other. I like button grapples, I liked the stick grapples, so it doesn't make a big difference to me, but I wouldn't be opposed to a massive overhaul of this. I think most still prefer No Mercy's control scheme and the game has not aged particularly well.

WWE Universe is a lot of fun this year now that the needless restrictions of last year have been removed. There was no reason to only have title matches on PPV and barring people from changing title and #1 contender matches. There's still a lot of room for new ideas here though, so I hope they keep focusing on it in future years and don't just think "well, we fixed it, we can leave it alone for five years" like they did with the Royal Rumble, Ladder Matches and like I worry they'll do with Story Designer. There are still some odd restrictions and it can be a bit buggy, but for the most part, Universe is a lot of fun and could easily keep this game interesting until WWE '13.

Customization is still king, all the create features are as good as they've always been and the new Create-an-Arena is AWESOME. I haven't played around with it too much yet, but it's pretty jaw-dropping. Sure, they could add more stuff, more outfits for CAWs, etc., but take a trip around Community Creations and you'll see that there's nothing that can't be created. Of course, as usual, there's no option to fully edit matches. I can't have a 30-Man Royal Rumble with over-the-top rope eliminations turned off, ring-out on and falls count anywhere enabled like I could in No Mercy, WrestleMania 2000 and even WCW/nWo Revenge, but I guess this is never going to happen. It was my most favorite thing: First Blood Royal Rumbles, Royal Rumbles in the backstage area, putting people through tables, it was awesome! I understand keeping it to the standard rules in Road to WrestleMania, or even Universe, but just let me do it in exhibition!

There are a lot of gripes about Community Creations right now since the servers are constantly down and as frustrating as it is - I'm trying (and failing) to upload a story right now - I gotta give THQ a bit of a pass on this one. Yeah, it's 2011, this has been a major part of gaming this generation, but I don't think you'll ever truly know what kind of problems you'll have with online access until the game is released to the public. Perhaps I'm just being naive or technically stupid, but all the testing in the world can't prepare you for millions of people all trying to access your content at once. And I have a PS3, so after their online disaster earlier this year, anything else seems like a minor issue to me. Hopefully it'll get ironed out.

Now with that said, there are still lingering issues in this series that just shouldn't be happening in a game in this generation. For instance, if I beat Triple H in a match, Triple H should not do a run-in after said match. My entire console shouldn't lock up because I try to use an alternate outfit in Story Designer.

Commentary should not continue to be this terrible patchwork of lines. I know wrestlers probably aren't terrific voice actors, but there's no excuse for the horribly dull announcer intros or a "crowd" that sounds like 12 people in a sound booth. For all the work that goes into making it look like WWE TV, there's never been an effort to make it sound like WWE TV. If Call of Duty can make it sound like I'm in a Vietnamese jungle with aircraft flying overhead and napalm melting my face off, surely THQ and co. can figure out a sports arena. Especially for a license that has over 100,000 hours in their video library, study how it sounds! If Ricardo Rodriguez doesn't read his lines properly, make him do it again or record him live on Raw.

And this is probably nitpicking, but it's something that's bugged me about games for years - I'm so tired of having to sit through 47 Publisher/Developer logos, copyright notices, intro videos and load screens before I even get to the main menu. And THQ... it's 2011, it's time to introduce auto-save. "Do you want to save? Yes. Are you sure? Yes. Data will be overwritten? Yes. Are you absolutely, 100% sure you want to do this? Yes. There's really no coming back from this. Yes. You do realize you're making Randy Orton's tights blue? Yes. Once it's saved, it can't be unsaved. Yes. You'll have to re-edit it if you want to re-edit it." And then I throw my Xbox out the window.

I would also say that no game should make it to retail with as many glitches and bugs that have been reported, but as every Bethesda game released this generation has shown, it's okay to release a totally broken game now. WWE '12 isn't that bad and I haven't personally experienced any glitch besides the aforementioned console freeze whenever I try to use Superstar Threads in Story Designer, but the issues are happening enough to be well known within a week of release.

As usual, I have many jumbled thoughts on the ~~Smackdown~~ WWE series that range from minor issues to stuff that should've been sorted out in 2000. The games will probably never be perfect, which is okay, and why I have no problem recommending WWE '12. Its positives outweigh its negatives and while I'm still waiting for the elusive OMG!AMAZING WWE game (THQ, just hire Fire Pro's developer Spike to make something for WWE Xbox Live Arcade/Playstation Network to shut me up.), WWE '12 is fun and that's all I really ask for. I had an awesome Royal Rumble match in WWE Universe last night where The Miz eliminated Sheamus (me) after a grueling back and forth battle. My Story Designer tale starring Zack Ryder is pretty fantastic and I can't wait to upload it (fix those servers!) so you can play it.

The gameplay and AI were things that had to be fixed and they took a huge step in the right direction there, but they're not done and they need to dig deep and work on some of these issues that have plagued the series for over a decade. No other game could get away with problems for this long, but we all want our WWE fix and this is our only option. It also helps that THQ has some great guys on staff that are incredibly friendly, accessible and take constructive criticism well. Stay on them, perhaps we'll find that elusive perfect game sooner than later. Will this game stay on my shelf after the next one comes out? Probably not, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth a purchase. Because though WWE '12 is more evolution than revolution it's one of the better entries in the series - even if it's technically a "new" series - it's perhaps the best yet.

WWE Survivor Series 2011 review

2011-11-21T16:58:00.000-05:00

25 years of Survivor Series. It's changed a lot over the years and its original purpose is completely irrelevant to modern professional wrestling, but the name still carries weight for a reason. It's not WrestleMania, it's not even SummerSlam, but every now and then, something really special happens at Survivor Series and WWE achieved that last night.

Although with that in mind, I have no idea why WWE would want John Laurinaitis to be the first person we see. Why was he even out there?

At least it was quick and forgettable and we could dive into our opening contest, John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler for the United States Championship. Welcome to Madison Square Garden, Johnny, don't let the boos get to you too bad. Yeah, the crowd was not happy with Morrison getting a title shot over Zack Ryder, and rightfully so. Sure, Morrison has a win over Ziggler, that's after months and months of losses, but Ryder has been on a bit of a roll as of late and also has a win over Ziggler.

Even with that in mind though, I love the slow burn with Ziggler. It'll be a bit of a stretch, but it is possible they could keep this going until WrestleMania. Have Ziggler continue to dodge Ryder as someone who's beneath him, let Ziggler keep winning and give him a WrestleMania moment. Not only would it be huge for Ziggler (assuming he can keep the momentum going), it would be great for the United States Title.

Morrison and Ziggler had a solid match though, standard Morrison fare, but Ziggler really shined. He's coming into this Mr. Perfect/Shawn Michaels hybrid persona and his "follow that" shtick should be his launchpad to the WWE Title scene after the WrestleMania dust settles. Hell, if he drops the title sooner rather than later, I could see him as a contender to win the Royal Rumble.

Zack Ryder's bit after the match was fun too and with a reaction like that, even knowing they were in Madison Smark Garden, WWE can't ignore the Ryder Revolution any longer.

Eve vs. Beth Phoenix was for the Diva's Championship and I honestly liked the match. It wasn't much more than your typical Raw Divas match, but c'mon, a Super Glam Slam? How can you not love that? Kudos to Eve for taking that as well and even though the "booty poppin" is an automatic eye roll, Eve has become a solid female competitor by WWE standards. She's not a Beth or Natalya, but she's no Alicia Fox either.

The Rock's backstage promo was perhaps the best since his return, even if he did insinuate that he was going to impregnate John Cena via the collective electricity of 17,000 people.

Team Barrett vs. Team Orton was our one and only traditional Survivor Series match of the evening and poor Sin Cara. Poor, poor Sin Cara, the dude just can't catch a break. I don't know if he's just completely collapsed under the pressure of WWE's massive stage, if it's a string of bad luck, or if the guy is a victim of his own hype, but damn... poor Sin Cara. He's expected to be out six to nine months with his knee injury, but I'll be genuinely surprised if he ever comes back.

I have to admit, I wasn't a big fan of this match, at least most of it. Aside from Kofi's Stay Puft Marshmallow tights, there wasn't a lot going on and it really dragged at points. I really hated the fact that Ziggler came in a house of fire, showing off his ability to pull double duty, then goes down within seconds to the move that ruins everything - The RKO.

But at least there was good news, Wade Barrett & Cody Rhodes survived the night and left Orton battered and beaten. I know I mentioned Ziggler earlier as a long shot, but if the Barrett Barrage continues, he's my way too early pick to win the Rumble.

Big Show vs. Mark Henry for the World Heavyweight Championship was next and sometimes one move is all you need. If you're an old school ECW fan like myself, you may remember when Rob Van Dam and Scotty Anton had their big feud in the twilight years of the company. No one cared about Scotty Anton, but people were ridiculously excited about the match because RVD was going to unveil a new move, the Van Terminator. It was huge news back then because RVD was doing really wild and innovative stuff in the ring, unlike now where we'd be amazed just because RVD did something different for the first time in a decade. The whole build up of the match was when will we see the Van Terminator and when it finally happened, it instantly became a staple of RVD's career.

And when his career comes to its eventual end, that flying elbow drop will be played in every single highlight reel involving the Big Show for as long WWE exists. The match itself was fine, it was just in front of the wrong audience, but even those cynical bastards in the Garden couldn't help but go nuts when Big Show started scaling the top rope and thinking about maybe... possibly... will he do it... can he do it... he doesn't look so sure he can do it... OH MY GOD HE DID IT! That's the kind of excitement you can only get in a wrestling ring.

A lot of folks seemed to hate the ending, but I thought it worked well. The beauty of Mark Henry's character (the one good enough to earn a World Title after 15 years with the company) is that he's not just "MARK HENRY SMASH! RARGH!", he's a thinking man's monster and he has his own moral code. In Henry's mind, it's unfair that he even has to wrestle The Big Show again; they had a match last month, he didn't lose the belt, so it should've been time to move on. It doesn't help that Big Show just won't stay down, so he kicked him in the balls.

Of course, Big Show is no pushover, so if you kick him in the balls, he's going to break your leg. Should all come together for a fun gimmick match at TLC and with the spotlight on steel chairs during this feud, I assume we'll get another "chairs match." I want to see what they'd do with tables, or perhaps even the most awkward ladder match of all time?

CM Punk vs. Alberto Del Rio for the WWE Championship was almost perfect. The match was excellent, Punk using Fink as his personal ring announcer, the crowd, it all blended together to create the perfect atmosphere. My only gripe was that the build up for the match was sub-par and WWE really missed the boat on Punk representing the 99% against Del Rio's 1%, but this is WWE, so I guess that was too much to expect.

That aside, the two really had a terrific match that was easily Match of the Night and very likely a late contender for Match of the Year. The crowd was into it from bell to bell and the payoff was wonderful: CM Punk is once again WWE Champion. He has the belt he never should've lost and hopefully - and this is a big hopefully - he can restore that excitement about WWE and wrestling in general when he began his quest for the title back in July. A lot of really, really bad stuff happened between then and now, so it's going to be an uphill battle for Punk, but if anyone can pull it off, it's him.

Oh and jumping in the crowd when you win any sort of championship, whether it's the WWE Title, Vince Lombardi Trophy, or a Cable Ace Award, is always cool.

The Rock & John Cena vs. The Miz & R-Truth featured The Rock's return to the ring for the first time in almost eight years and it was like he had been gone for eight days. The Rock fell right back into it and showed why no one has been able to capture the imagination of WWE fans since he left, there's just no one as special as he is. It's a cold, hard truth, but it was right there on full display last night.

In George Carlin's 1999 special You Are All Diseased, he railed against white, overpaid actors who blow into a harmonica and think they're Blues artists. "I'll tell ya a little secret about the blues, it's not enough to know what notes to play, you need to know why they need to be played." The Rock knows why the notes need to be played.

He's never been the best technical wrestler in the world, going back a decade or so to the last time I cared about that kind of thing, The Rock was remarkably average in the ring, especially putting him in there with the Jerichos and Benoits of the world. Hell, on a technical level, he wasn't even as good as Triple H when speaking strictly about "wrasslin." But The Rock knows what needs to be done, when to do it, and what little tweaks to add to better work the room he's in.

It's not like Hogan, who got by on doing just enough, and it's not like Austin, who was a fantastic in-ring performer who never got the credit he deserved as a wrestler during the Attitude Era, The Rock did his own thing. It's why he's one of the few people to leave the kind of lasting mark that he has, he was a once in a lifetime Superstar. Look at Cena, he's arguably had just as many, if not more, flat-out awesome matches than The Rock, but he still gets "YOU CAN'T WRESTLE!" chants. His promos are no more ridiculous than The Rock's - is "baloney fudgin' mustard" really that much worse than "go lick a llama's anus"? No, but The Rock just has this aura about him that no one else in wrestling ever has.

That's why he was so impressive last night, that aura is as strong as it ever was. Cena might have that if his in-ring career was as brief and as sporadic as Rock's was, it certainly adds to the mystique, but Rock is truly a special character. And I'm not even that big of a fan of the guy.

And I don't want to take anything away from Miz and Truth, who obviously were the Razor Ramon and Ric Flair in this match (download Survivor Series 92), but they played their roles perfectly. Truth ranting about pigeons in the pre-match promo and Miz being Miz did add to the match, even if it was just "hot tag to The Rock, Rocky Moves of Doom (where was the Samoan Drop!?), People's Elbow, YAY!"

Speaking of the Rocky Moves of Doom, how awesome is it that he still can't do the Dragon Screw? Like I said, he hasn't lost a step! Oh and just another example of "It's Okay if You're The Rock," if John Cena did a Sharpshooter that ugly, Canada would burn him in effigy.

The match was so much fun though. Honestly, when's the last time a tag match could headline a PPV with two guys teaming up for the first time being the main hook? Again, you might have to download Survivor Series 92.

Unfortunately, the aftermath of the match fell completely flat. I just feel bad for John Cena, he's busted his ass for almost a decade now and still gets booed out of the building for no good reason. I know people are talking about a heel turn and while Cena finally snapping could be very interesting, it's really a sad commentary on wrestling fans: we hate good and decent people who work hard and achieve their goals.

I don't think they'll turn him and they're just going to roll with the punches when Miami throws a fit after Cena makes The Rock tap out at WrestleMania. Don't worry WWE, there will be hundreds of "IF CENA WINS, WE RIOT" signs, but the most they'll do is furiously rage on their smartphone while sitting in traffic.

Overall, a very good show. Not enough to undo the nightmarish September and October WWE put us through, but the healing hopefully has begun. Definitely worth your $50.

Laying the smack down, bringing the interest up

2011-11-20T09:47:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that my interest in wrestling is at a low point right now. I haven't written a single thing about WWE since The Muppets hosted Raw, I fell asleep during the Raw a week before that, I haven't been watching Smackdown and I haven't watched a PPV since SummerSlam. It's telling that I'm more excited about the new WWE 12 video game than the actual WWE product, I would rather tell my stories in my own head than deal with what WWE has been throwing out there.

But tonight, I'm going to throw down $60 to watch Survivor Series and I'm genuinely excited about it. For all the complaints about WWE's product right now, and there are dozens, they are doing something genuinely new tonight: The Rock is wrestling. That is something that hasn't been seen in almost eight years and when the majority of WWE shows end with "tag match where the good guys win" or "John Cena stands tall," at least it's something different. Granted, tonight's show is going to end with "John Cena stands tall... now with added Rock!" but at least we get to see The Rock lace up his boots again, something even a year ago I said would never happen.

For better or worse, this is a big deal. Criticisms of The Rock being bigger than every other WWE Superstar, despite not being a full-time WWE Superstar since 2001, are valid. He casts a big shadow and WWE just hasn't been able to create someone with that kind of appeal since The Rock, with the possible exception of John Cena. Cena's not as big as The Rock, but Rock was around in a much different period and the rose-tinted glasses prevent people from remembering how polarizing The Rock was during his time at the top.

So yeah, it's a sad commentary on WWE's star-making abilities in 2011 and after WrestleMania 28, I'm sure The Rock will disappear for a long time ("never leaving again!"), but tonight is still huge. It's The Rock in the ring for the first time since 2004 and it's really just a teaser for what is sure to be one of the biggest WrestleMania main events in history. Even for a guy that's completely bored with WWE right now - I'm ready to be electrified.

Way Too Early

2011-11-02T06:27:00.001-04:00

In honor of The Muppets being adorable on Raw, here's the best Muppets-related thing since the Muppet Babies.

WWE Raw - October 31, 2011

2011-10-31T21:01:00.016-04:00

WWE has been dreadful the last few weeks. But it's Halloween, there are Muppets and The Rock is returning to the ring. They absolutely have to hit this one out of the park. Oh and check the Twitter feed too.

And we begin with the man himself, The Rock... via satellite. The Rock has an answer for John Cena's request for a tag team partner: "hell no." Well, that's that then.

LULZ JUST KIDDIN!

The Rock thought about it for a whole week and decided he will team with John Cena because he really hates The Miz and R-Truth. I get The Miz, but what'd R-Truth ever do to you, Rocky? Just because "What's Up" is a way better song than "Pie," it's no reason to threaten bodily harm. But it's gonna happen, Madison Square Garden, 15th anniversary of The Rock's debut at Survivor Series, fun little rhyme, smell what he's cookin, etc. Hey, it's The Rock wrestling, even if the promo is typical Rock, I can't complain.

CM Punk vs. Mark Henry is our opening contest and if CM Punk can stay out of the Hall of Pain, he'll get his title shot against Alberto Del Rio at Survivor Series. Not much of a match before Alberto Del Rio & Ricardo Rodriguez make their way to ringside and Rodriguez "assaults" Mark Henry, causing a disqualification. Definitely a dick move, but certainly makes sense and I don't know why bad guys don't pull stunts like that more often. And kudos to Punk for just throwing Rodriguez to Henry and doing the John Cena "you wronged me, so I must punch you" bit.

Miss Piggy and Kermit T. Frog arrive on a specially-crafted stage and do an awesome Brood rise-from-the-stage entrance. Jack Swagger & Vickie Guerrero interrupt and Kermit gets in a great one liner about how he didn't mean to offend Jack or his mom. HAH! Santino's out next and announces he has a match with Swagger later and Dolph Ziggler has to contend with Zack Ryder. Kermit saying "WOO! WOO! WOO!" was cute as well, but not as cute as Swagger clamping his mouth shut.

Diva Costume Contest Battle Royal up next to determine the #1 contender for the Divas Championship. Typical Diva nonsense, but AJ dressed as Kitana from Mortal Kombat and trying the fan lift is fucking hysterical. Eve wins, which isn't surprising considering the "Kelly or Eve" Divas division, but I have a hard time taking this whole exchange seriously when the Divas of Doom are facing off with Robin, a sailor and a sexy pirate.

Bunsen & Beaker! And poor Beaker gets bullied by Christian, but luckily Beaker's big brother Sheamus saves the day!

Air Boom vs. Cody Rhodes & Wade Barrett and as far as thrown together tag teams go, you could do worse than Rhodes and Barrett. Fantastic match too, especially with Barrett reversing a Bourne hurricanrana into Wasteland, only to have Bourne reverse Wasteland into a nasty DDT. Still doesn't work out so well for Bourne anyway, an assist from Cody allows Barrett to hit Wasteland and get a win over the tag champs. Christian interferes after the match (for some reason) attacking Cody and Kofi and Sheamus makes the save. I assume we're setting up something for Survivor Series?

Backstage, CM Punk complains to Johnny Ace about Del Rio's actions. The Dynamic Dude tells Punk he'll get his WWE Title match if Del Rio agrees to it. Uh... he just went out of his way to keep Punk from getting the match, why would he agree to it?

Alberto Del Rio vs. The Big Show is our 10pm main event and wow, this match is loooooooong. Really long for a Raw match, but pretty fun and solid back and forth action. Del Rio runs face first into that CARCINOGENIC FIST and Big Show picks up a clean 1-2-3 victory over the WWE Champion. Interesting, you'd think Punk would at least factor into the finish...

But here's CM Punk now, sitting next to a comatose Del Rio and wakes him up the good ol' fashioned way, water to the face. Punk locks Del Rio in the Anaconda Vice until he agrees to a WWE Title match at Survivor Series. Okay, I can live with the way that worked out.

Backstage, Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger rough up Gonzo, who was just minding his own business with Fozzie Bear. Assaulting Gonzo is NOT cool, guys. Not cool at all!

Jack Swagger vs. Santino up next with ANIMAL! as our special guest timekeeper! ANIMAL!!!! The match is pretty much what you'd expect a Santino vs. Swagger match to be, but Beaker provides the assist, giving Santino an energy drink, that Santino just spits in Swagger's face. Roll-up, win! The cuteness continues.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Zack Ryder should be a fantastic match, but I'm dreading the inevitable arrival of Huge Jackedman. More enjoyable, multi-segment, back and forth action. Ryder pins Ziggler, but the US Champ has his foot on the rope and the match continues. Vickie tries to get involved, but Ryder outsmarts Ziggler and nails the Rough Ryder for a big win. Crowd EXPLODED for the non-title victory, WWE should really consider putting the US Title on him. All the singles titles are held by bad guys right now, why not give the guy a run?

And hey, no sign of Huge. Yay!

No JR vs. Michael Cole tonight since they're definitely running short on time. I'm not going to lose any sleep over that one.

Main Event time! The Miz vs. John Cena in a WrestleMania rematch and just like WrestleMania, this should end with Cena beaten and humiliated. This is not going the way I want it to though, especially with Cena turning Miz inside-out with a NASTY~! clothesline. But Miz responds with that NASTY~~!! kick-start DDT and Cena lands square on his dome. Gross.

Outside the ring, John Cena gets attacked by Ghostface from Scream, but Cena battles him off, locks Miz in the STF, wins... then hits Ghostface with an AA. Surprise, it was R-Truth the whole time. Damn, I was hoping Matthew Lillard was coming to Raw.

Well, Raw was good until that ending, which was incredibly stupid. Why does John Cena need The Rock if he can beat Miz and Truth that easily? Argh. Still, good wrestling from beginning to end and the Muppets were really cute. Wasn't the home run I hoped for, but a decent start.

Way Too Early

2011-10-20T06:25:00.002-04:00

Way Too Horrifying edition. TOMORROW!!!

WWE Raw - October 17, 2011

2011-10-17T21:03:00.015-04:00

Despite my incredibly negative feelings towards wrestling lately, I am in fact going to sit down, watch and live blog Raw tonight. Even if the advertised main event is John Cena & Jim Ross vs. Alberto Del Rio & Michael Cole (seriously). Even with all that in mind, I think it's really cool that WWE is doing a week of tapings in Mexico and I'm a sucker for historic moments.

So naturally, the first thing WWE is giving Mexican fans for their first live Raw in history, is Johnny Ace. Great. The dude is anything but dynamic, so instead of listening to him talk, I'm looking around the arena for interesting things. Is that an actual Spanish announce table I spot at ringside? If that survives the night, I will be displeased. Although, since we're in Mexico, maybe this should be the night that the Spanish announce table survives and the English table gets shattered?

Blah, blah, blah Dauber from Coach continues to blather on and on and finally we get someone I actually like, Jim Ross. Of course, it's all to set up Cena & JR vs. Del Rio & Cole, which is crap, but at least JR hasn't actually been sent home again. But yeah, crap.

On a related note, Randy Orton! Hey-O!

Randy Orton, Sheamus & John Morrison vs. Mark Henry, Christian & Cody Rhodes is our opening contest in a six-man tag. Wait, it's Mexico, it should be a TRIOS MATCH! Sadly, that is not to be, in fact Orton and Rhodes remove themselves from the equation early on, taking us down to a standard tag match. A lot of fun action here and the crowd is red hot for it, so I'm not complaining about the absence of Orton.

Christian and Sheamus eventually remove themselves as well, brawling throughout the arena, which gives Mark Henry the opportunity to throw John Morrison into the air and catch him in a World's Strongest Slam on the way down. Hell. Yes. For all the bad things I can say about WWE right now, and believe me, there's a lot, I can't say a bad thing about Mark Henry. He's WWE's best built character in ages, period.

Eve vs. Natalya is our Diva portion of the evening. Quick, fairly useless match between two Divas that are better than the matches they are given. Eve wins, but if a tree falls in the middle of the forest, etc.

CM Punk vs. The Miz up next, but not before a verbal barrage from Miz and R-Truth. CM Punk from two months ago would've delivered a retort of epic proportions. It would've been like Friday the 13th Part VII when Jason slammed that chick in the sleeping bag against a tree... but with words. Instead, the CM Punk of October says nothing and gets back-up from Triple H. Great.

Two months ago, I would've eagerly thrown down $60 to watch CM Punk vs. The Miz on PPV. While I am interested Punk & HHH vs. TruMiz, I just can't help but think how amazing it would've been to see these two lock up one-on-one with the WWE Title on the line. There's a lot of potential in Punk, Truth and Miz working together, but the addition of Triple H kinda annoys me. It's gonna be a good match, but eh, this whole thing just doesn't sit right with me, for reasons I detailed extensively last week.

So while Punk and Miz are having a fun match with good usage of the guys on the outside, Johnny Dauber simply stops it because Triple H, a guy who isn't actually involved in the match, has an issue with immigration. I'm going to repeat that, since there's an issue with Triple H's passport, the match between CM Punk and The Miz has to be stopped. I get it, they want us to boo Lauranaitis, but this is just stupid. They might as well put "HEY, WONDER WHAT YOU'RE MISSING ON MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL?" on the ticker.

We return from commercial and the match is back on, not before showing us what's going on with Triple H backstage. Rhythm of the match has been completely killed and Punk gets a school boy roll-up for the win. Truth runs in and the double team is on and who's going to save CM Punk? Four referees! WOO! EXCITEMENT! Man, I don't know how they're doing it, but somehow WWE is getting me to not care about a segment featuring CM Punk, The Miz and R-Truth.

Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler and most importantly, Vickie Guerrero, looking smoking hot, come to the ring and are actually the highlight of the night so far. Just an awesome, old school heel promo with Jack Swagger singing the the Star Spangled Banner to get the Mexican crowd riled up. That is awesome, and I honestly don't know if it's been done before, except maybe when the Hart Foundation was doing their thing in 1997. But even then, the American audience watching on TV was supposed to cheer for the Americans, not in this case.

Zack Ryder interrupts the singing, making him the good guy (!!) and proceeds to beat Swagger in no time flat. The Cougar's Cubs try to do the double-team, but Huge Jackedman saves the day and he's got Ziggler next.

Mason Ryan vs. Dolph Ziggler is pretty much what you'd expect it to be... and then Huge gets disqualified for repeatedly clotheslining Ziggler in the corner. Seriously thrilling stuff. Edge of my seat, really. Ziggler and Ryder could be having a fun little feud for the US Title, instead we're desperately trying to get people to care about Beefy Leopold.

Main Event time! Alberto Del Rio & Michael Cole vs. John Cena & Jim Ross and the winner gets to pick the stipulation for the WWE Title match at Vengeance. One of these days, I'd love for the bad guy to win and make it an "Only I Can Win Match."

Hats off to Mexico though for being genuinely into this match. I suppose that's the beauty of getting a televised show for the first time, you'll cheer for anything, even a match that's at best, deliberately slow so they don't give away too much before the PPV, and at worst, a match featuring Michael Cole and Jim Ross as wrestlers.

JR and Cena pick up the win in a painfully long match and Cena gets to pick the stipulation for Sunday. $5 says it's an I Quit Match. Or not... it's a Last Man Standing. Lucky for me, I don't have $5 anyway! I guess that's cool? Although it kinda gives it away, they can keep the belt off Cena in a LMS match, but he never loses I Quit matches.

That's the best they got on the first ever Raw in Mexico. Admittedly, there were some fun moments, but it was mostly boring and we're officially right back to the status quo. It's like July-September never happened and this Raw could've fit right into any ho-hum week of the last five years. It's just depressing at this point.

New Fair to Flair podcast

2011-10-16T10:13:00.000-04:00

Good news, there's a new podcast!

Click here to listen to the new Fair to Flair Show

I know podcasts have been few and far between lately, but WWE hasn't exactly done much to talk about lately... plenty to yell angrily about, but not much to talk about. Enjoy!

Way Too Early - Red 5 Edition

2011-10-14T06:45:00.002-04:00

WWE Raw - October 10, 2011

2011-10-12T13:27:00.000-04:00

In case you missed my thoughts on the opening segment of Raw, or as I like to call it, the most counter-productive 20 minutes in the history of television, read my extended editorial here. Here are my thoughts on the rest of the show.

Despite the intelligence-insulting nonsense from Triple H and Co., I did like the idea of a small group of guys trying to put on a show with just the four of them. Obviously you can't fill a show with that, but I thought they were onto something with John Cena vs. Sheamus with Triple H as the referee and CM Punk back on commentary (and timekeeper duty). Had the preceding 20 minutes not pissed me off so bad, I would've found it rather sweet and it would've helped me get on their side of the Walk Out a lot more realistically than hammering me over the head with "those guys in the parking lot have vaginas, the four of us have giant cocks!"

The crowd was hot for the match, Cena and Sheamus play off each other well, Punk was glorious to hear back on commentary, so of course it had to come to a screeching halt. Granted, a returning Vince McMahon could've been a big deal, but this story is already such a mess, it only further complicated things. Vince is still chairman of the board, but he's not in charge of day-to-day operations, and he can relieve Triple H of his duties now, and now Johnny Ace is the GM of Raw. Oh come on. Why is this guy on TV? He's completely void of charisma, has no name value and has had no connection to WWE programming prior to a couple months ago. Hell, David Otunga would've made a better choice for GM, he at least has previous experience in the job. And what the hell happened to The G?M? Are we really going to G-TV that whole thing?

The only good guy that was prominently featured returning from the Walk Out was John Morrison, who then got his ass handed to him by Christian and his crew. So not only is Triple H calling guys like Morrison total pansies, they're proving it in the ring too. Am I really not supposed to be cheering for anyone other than HHH, Cena, Sheamus and Punk?

Mark Henry continued his trend of being the only thing in the company worth watching, but then they had to ruin that too by putting him up against Randy Orton. Match was fine, albeit brief, but I did enjoy the interference from Cody Rhodes and I'm never going to argue with Orton getting a paper bag over his stupid head. Cody should've punted the bag for good measure. Okay, I take it back, Mark Henry and Cody Rhodes are the only things worth watching in the entire company right now.

Eve & Kelly Kelly vs. Tamina & Rosa Mendes was as pointless as it sounds.

Johnny Ace announced Del Rio vs. Cena for the next PPV, which makes sense, but hopefully they don't need Cena to win the belt again. Oh and Jim Ross got fired because it's that time of year.

Mason Ryan & Air Boom vs. David Otunga & Cougar's Cubs was what it was, it's hard to get me to hate a six-man tag, but not much else to say. Ryan just isn't clicking for me though, he's a WWE cliché at this point and needs to find something to stand out.

CM Punk vs. Alberto Del Rio was off to a good start as our main event, and eventually turned into CM Punk & Alberto Del Rio vs. The Miz & R-Truth, who were rehired by Johnny Ace. Miz & Truth were victorious over their weakened opponents, but of course, that didn't stop Triple H & Punk from kicking their asses after the match. I suppose it sets up the Vengeance tag match well, but Punk and HHH being all buddy-buddy all the sudden really bugs me. I know, it's wrestling, but for as much attention to detail they've given to Punk's character lately, it's upsetting to see that abandoned.

Just a terrible Raw. Not terrible like Dennis Miller is hosting and we're just going to throw out a bunch of two-minute matches terrible, no this was worse. This was so terrible that it really makes me question why I still watch wrestling. A bad episode is one thing, every show has those, but this seemed like a show that had deliberate disgust for its audience. One that set a tone that says, "you don't like this? Good, we don't want you anyway." It was incredibly frustrating and didn't leave me with much hope for the rest of the year. Things can always be turned around, but if this is the direction WWE is taking, I honestly don't know if I want to be a part of it.

WWe are the 1%

2011-10-11T07:15:00.002-04:00

WWE has a really bizarre outlook on the world.

All across the nation, Americans are standing up against corporate greed, rampant corruption and a system that has been rigged in the favor of a very, very, very, very, very small group of people. While many of us are struggling to make ends meet, desperately searching for work, taking jobs that we are vastly overqualified for, going bankrupt to pay medical bills, losing our houses, etc., 400 people have more wealth than the bottom 100 million. No, not 400,000... just 400. And guess who props up those 400 when their house of cards collapses? The other 299,999,600 of us.

Those in the upper 1% cry about taxes while a bus driver gives a larger percentage of their income to the government than a hedge fund manager. GE paid $0 in taxes last year, but it's the teachers union that gets vilified as greedy and power-hungry.

So it was only a matter of time before some Americans rose up and got pissed off. The message is unfocused, but passionate anger. It didn't have to get to this point, and surely there is a more practical way to enact change besides "occupying" various business districts, but the system has failed these people for so long, they feel they have no other option. So protesters are going to do what protesters do, they scream loudly until that 1% begins to listen.

WWE thinks you want a pair of earplugs over a megaphone.

A recent study when Linda McMahon was running for Senate, showed that while sports fans generally skew to the right, a solid majority of professional wrestling fans are left-leaning, blue collar folks. We're also the least likely to vote, but I think that plays into being so frustrated at a system that has failed, we just do our jobs and try to make it to the next paycheck. You wouldn't know that by watching last night's Raw though.

In the opening segment, Triple H addressed the WWE Universe saying that he will not bow to pressure from the 99% of WWE employees, in fact, they're just a bunch of whiny bitches. "Oh it's too hard" he mockingly said as the vast majority of the company was protesting in the parking lot. They never showed them, presumably so the crowd wouldn't boo the likes of Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston when they were featured later in the evening. I mentioned it last week, hoping it was just poor execution or a pro-HHH crowd, but WWE literally set up a story where Triple H was the only hero and the entire roster were pansies who wouldn't be able to cut it in Triple H's heyday, which by the way, is the last time WWE was cool.

Okay, so he wasn't the only hero for long, he did get some support from John Cena, which makes sense. Cena literally never quits, I've seen him tortured Jack Bauer style, but he takes it and powers through because that's who he is. I thought it was weird for him to say a lot of the guys in the parking lot are just overreacting because Triple H is their "first boss," when I can't think of a single Superstar that has debuted in the very short period that Triple H has been in charge. Maybe Sin Cara Dos? But that's splitting hairs, I suppose.

Sheamus also stopped by to lend his support. Fine, whatever, he's a newly-turned good guy and they don't want to mess with that before the biggest push of his career. Of course, it is proof that WWE had no intention of making the protesters sympathetic in this situation, they are, in fact, whiny bitches.

But the worst came when CM Punk came to the ring to also join the boy scouts and speak out against the Walk Out. Yes, that CM Punk, you know, the guy who two months ago was doing the biggest anti-authority character since Stone Cold Steve Austin. Yeah, he apparently wants to settle his differences in the ring and address people he has issues with "personally." So much for the CM Punk who spoke up for all the guys in the back who aren't getting a fair shake and all the guys in the unemployment line who never will. RIP Voice of the Voiceless, 2011-2011.

And I think that's my #1 issue with this whole segment, Punk could've been the guy to come out and add some shades of grey and essentially saved the story. He could've been the guy to say that those people in the parking lot didn't walk out because they couldn't hack it, they're just tired of the bullshit and Triple H's poor leadership isn't helping. I mean c'mon, Punk just tried to get Triple H to resign three weeks ago!

In many ways, wrestling has always reflected the cultural attitude of the era that surrounds it, and I think this segment (sadly) summed up America in 2011 quite perfectly. In 1997, it was cool to want to punch your boss in the face. We were so fed up with downsizing, outsourcing and "going corporate," while the government was too worried about blowjobs, so Stone Cold took matters into his own hands and gave his boss a Stunner for trying to make him put on a tie. But in 2011, you're just lucky to have a job, so shut your mouth and get to work, drone.

You think you're going to unionize? You want a better working environment? A raise? Or else you'll leave? Well, there's the door! The fact that WWE is the only professional wrestling company that matters just makes it even more depressingly reminiscent of the real world. There's honestly a great story to tell there, but again, WWE thinks you want the earplugs, not the megaphone.

I realize I've already gone way too long for this to be a traditional Raw review, so stay tuned, more thoughts on the show coming later today.

Way Too Early - eArly ediTion

2011-10-10T06:14:00.001-04:00

Wow, just wow.

WWE Smackdown - October 7, 2011

2011-10-09T12:11:00.001-04:00

As always, this week's Smackdown review will be brought to you in Fair to Flair's "WOO!/BOO!" format... also, by the letter "J" and the number "13."

WOO!

Alberto Del Rio vs. Sin Cara Azul was a hell of an opening match, but FFS, that German Suplex Del Rio hit was NASTY!!!! I believe I screamed "HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!" and then pressed rewind on the DVR so my wife could see. Her reaction, "why would you show me that?" Little too short for my tastes and perhaps a bit too decisive, but Del Rio is the WWE Champion after all. Sin Cara Negro attack after the match was a bit formulaic, something I'd expect in a WWE video game, but it did what it needed to do.

YAY! The Big Show is back! And there's logical storyline progression, to boot! We didn't see a lot of that on this show (more on that in the BOO!) and I'm genuinely stoked to see Show vs. Mark Henry. If you would've told me a year ago that the thing I'd be most excited for in late 2011 would be a World Heavyweight Title feud between Mark Henry and Big Show, I would've fallen out of my chair like Annie on last week's episode of Community.

Mark Henry was great here as well, asking Show what he's done to deserve a World Title match when all he's done is sit at home on a vacation that Henry gave him. Henry taking it under advisement and promising a response on "Mark Henry time" got a legitimate LOL out of me, and Big Show's promising to induct Henry in the Hall of Pain if he didn't get a response by the end of the night was great as well.

Randy Orton & Sheamus vs. Christian & Cody Rhodes was a fun, Raw-style main event tag match. Of course, that means Orton & Sheamus won, but the match was rock solid (if predictable) and it's nice to see Cody continue to mix it up with the big boys.

Mark Henry tried to decline Big Show's challenge and yeah... he got inducted into his own Hall of Pain. Big Show is one of the few guys who can legitimately overpower Mark Henry, so it all worked when Show started swatting security guards like flies, spearing Henry and of course, chokeslamming the World Champion through the announce table. Glorious and honestly, the only really good thing on this entire show.

BOO!

A huge BOO! to WWE conveniently working around The Walking Out (Sundays on AMC) without having to do major storyline advancement. Teddy Long told Zack Ryder at the start of the show that Triple H wasn't going to be on Smackdown to avoid another walk out. Granted, David Otunga explained that handing over control to Teddy Long for a night brought them to Smackdown, but they'll walk out if Triple H doesn't resign on Monday, and that would be fine if it was just Christian, Otunga, Jack Swagger, Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler, Vickie Guerrero and Alberto Del Rio. But the entire company walked out on Monday, you can't do something that dramatic and just push pause. I knew they would, but it's still a bummer... how fun would an anarchist Smackdown have been?

WWE, this is YOUR storyline, you're writing it, Triple H isn't just the GM of Raw, he's the COO of the entire company. What makes Smackdown any different? Other than the fact it's the show you don't want to do any major storyline advancement on?

Case in point, Air Boom being wishy-washy and saying Raw's just too chaotic, but they'll be on Smackdown every week... then they get attacked from behind during their entrance by Jack Swagger & Dolph Ziggler. It's fine that Ziggler & Swagger are hypocrites, they're bad guys, they're supposed to be disingenuous and selfish, but the rest of the story is just confused at best and lazy at worst.

I still have no idea why Alicia Fox is a face.

Jinder Mahal vs. Ezekiel Jackson? Really? Poor Big Zeke.

A Hornswoggle filler segment? Really²?

Overall

Just a bad show. The Walk Out lost its oomph, there was tons of meaningless filler, loads of contradictions and the only time Teddy Long gained some semblance of control was during Big Show's assault on Henry, and that story is completely separate from the Walk Out. Obviously the Walk Out is all building to something, most likely Survivor Series, but it's become such a mess early on that I'm mighty skeptical. But once WWE dangles that shiny object named Dwayne in front of us, we're all gonna melt like butter and call our cable or satellite provider to order anyway.

Way Too Early

2011-10-06T06:00:00.000-04:00

In honor of Steve Jobs, the JOB Squad.

Way Too Early - King of Kings Edition

2011-10-04T06:03:00.000-04:00

What good is being the King of Kings when you rule no one?

WWE Raw - October 3, 2011

2011-10-03T21:02:00.021-04:00

Hey, it's a Raw live blog and I don't even have time to type an intro for it, Raw goes live straight to the Cajun Dome, commentary announces a massive 12-man tag main event and we're starting off with a match!

And blah, it's a Randy Orton match and he's taking on Drew McIntyre. Poor Drew McIntyre. Randy is running roughshod through the man who was once referred to as the "Sinister Scot," beating him from pillar to post and then throwing him into the barricade for good measure. To his credit, McIntyre is taking this beating like a man, landing square on his neck each time; hey, if your only chance to break out is to get your ass kicked like a champ, get your ass kicked like a champ. Drew got a good boot to the face in there, which I always appreciate when Orton is on the receiving end, but you know the story here: rope-DDT, RKO, Rev Theory plays, then Randy hits another RKO because he's such a hero, the end.

But COMMENCE THE WIG SPLITTAGE, the World Heavyweight Champion has arrived! Mark Henry flaunts his title belt (fantastic dick move) and we got ourselves a brawl! Vintage "let them fight!" kind of brawl with security trying to keep the irresistible force from meeting the immovable object, but Orton gets the advantage and dumps the champ over the barricade. Whatever, you can't get the job done when it counts, Randall.

And Orton can't keep the big man down, he's so badass, he's going to wrestle a match! Mark Henry vs. John Morrison is our second match of the evening and Booker T describes the match perfectly, "I call it a buffet, Mark Henry's about to eat." Indeed he is, Book, indeed he is. Morrison gets a nice flurry of offense, even hits a picture perfect Starship Pain, but Henry throws him off like a blanket. Today's John Morrison's birthday (hey, two days before mine!), and Mizark has a very special present for him: the World's Strongest Slam! And another World's Strongest Slam! He should've hit Morrison with 32 slams for his birthday.

After the match, Henry tells Orton he's done with him (good) and turns his attention to the Big Show, who is returning this Friday night on Smackdown. That should be fun.

Now, David Otunga, Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler, Vickie Guerrero, Cody Rhodes and Alberto Del Rio are in the ring to express their legitimate grievances with Triple H. David Otunga is considerably less awesome without his bow tie, but Cody's classic IC Title more than makes up for it. These Superstars are claiming that Triple H has created an unsafe working environment... which isn't that part of the deal? You're grown men fighting other grown men, it's kinda unsafe by definition. Just sayin, guys. But you're right, Triple H is a huge asshole.

Triple H makes his way to the stage and brushes off these legitimate concerns, telling them to "shut up and fight." See, he just proved me right, huge asshole!

Kelly Kelly & Eve vs. Divas of Doom is our Diva portion of the evening and while we're redesigning titles, how about a new belt for Beth Phoenix? Let's replace the butterfly with, ya know, a phoenix? And hey, the match is over. Kelly viciously assaults The Glamazon, slamming her head repeatedly into the announce table and gets herself disqualified. Not bad, but let's be honest, it's hard to take a savage beating seriously when Kelly's theme music starts playing.

Backstage, Triple H tells Johnny Ace to get the roster to the ring for a staff meeting. Hope he sent someone to get bagels and coffee from Panera.

Jinder Mahal is in the ring, for some reason, and is thankfully interrupted by the returning Santino Marella! One COBRAAAAAAAAAAA! later, Santino is 1-0 since his return!

A Brodus Clay vignette? Odd, but I'm not opposed. I still don't know why they removed him as Alberto Del Rio's muscle, they worked well together.

Footage from after the Hell in a Cell main event is shown with The Miz & R-Truth looking like the most badass badasses that ever badassed. Their voluntary surrender once the door was opened was glorious. Pure, organic dickishness with no added fillers.

12 Man Tag Match is your 10pm main event with *deep breath* CM Punk, John Cena, Sheamus, Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne & Mason Ryan (really, Mason Ryan?) vs. Alberto Del Rio, Cody Rhodes, Christian, Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler & David Otunga. *exhale*

These matches are never easy to write about without devolving into "A BUNCH OF SHIT IS HAPPENING!" so please bear with me. Right now, Dolph Ziggler just slapped Huge Jackedman in the face, and he got military pressed over the top rope (REAL STEEL STYLE!) for his troubles.

Sheamus & Swagger have a fun little exchange, which leads to JR shouting "HE'S CLUBBERIN!" Then Cody & Punk going at it and JR mentions Rhodes being forced to wrestle "IN GUCCIS!" Who needs all the main event talent (and David Otunga) in this match when JR has been the star?

Evan Bourne gets the hot tag (in a match with Cena, Sheamus and Punk!) and nails Swagger with the Shooting Star Press! Vickie saves the day by putting Swaggie's foot on the rope, but the ref sees it and ejects her! It's almost like WWE is plotting this clusterfuck just for me, I love a good ref ejection!

And another commercial break, I have a feeling this match will just go to the main event staff meeting, half the roster is already out there.

Bad guys have grounded Bourne during the break, he makes a game-saving tag to John Cena, but even Cena is no match for the pure evil in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Booker T credits Christian, the tag team specialist, for their good fortune and I LOVE little touches like that on commentary, adds to the match and the participants.

Sheamus with yet another hot tag and he's a house of fire, dominating Dolph Ziggler, but Christian interferes and we've got PANDEMONIUM! Spear on Sheamus, Cross Rhodes on Evan Bourne, Cross Body from Kofi on Swagger & Rhodes, German Suplex from Del Rio onto Kofi, Go To Sleep on Del Rio, Neckbreaker (lol) from Otunga to Punk, Attitude Adjustment on Otunga, Zig Zag on Cena, I lost track of what's happening, BROGUE KICK ON ZIGGLER! GOOD GUYS WIN! TOO MANY LIMES!

WOW! That was exhausting, but tons of fun, and almost 40 minutes of action.

And that 40 minute match should help ease the sting that our main event tonight is a WWE staff meeting. Come experience the thrilling excitement of shit you deal with everyday at work! I hope there's a PowerPoint presentation!

The entire WWE Roster (refs included) surrounds the ring as Triple H awaits his vote of confidence. Wade Barrett says his piece, Mike Chioda even chimes in, and Beth Phoenix speaks on behalf of the Divas, but it seems like the returning Jerry Lawler is on Triple H's side. But King says someone is working behind the scenes to sabotage Triple H's job and it's causing problems and The Game can't control it. The baddies, referees and Divas vote no confidence and Lawler leads a walk-out! The entire locker room walks out, even Booker T, the only person staying behind is JR... who I suppose is now the default WWE Champion. Nope, he walked out too. WWE has seriously set up a situation where everyone except Triple H gets booed... and you thought 2002 was bad!

A ridiculous (but still intriguing) ending to an otherwise fantastic show. I don't know where they're going with the entire company walking out on Triple H, but the show was really good. That 40-minute tag match was a real highlight and I'd love to see the whole match without commercial interruption somehow. Put that on WWE.com!

Still, the show is just shy of perfection because it ended with everyone getting booed except Triple H. Triple H gives this impassioned speech about how he's "old school" and people need to just "shut up and fight," but he's not the good guy in this situation. He HAS let things get out of control and even if he's being sabotaged, he totally overreacted to the Miz/Truth situation. Hell, Triple H did worse than that during his last heel run! So I'm a little weary of where this is going, but I love a good mystery and if the payoff is good (i.e. not Johnny Ace), it should be a fun ride. But yeah, ridiculous.

Way Too Early

2011-10-03T06:43:00.002-04:00

I haven't seen Hell in a Cell yet, but Cody Rhodes bringing back the classic Intercontinental Championship, complete with white strap? AWESOME! It's the little things like this that I appreciate.

(WWE.com doesn't allow embedding, but here's a great interview with Cody about the change)

Cody talks IC Title and who tarnished its legacy

WWE Smackdown - September 30, 2011

2011-10-02T19:54:00.000-04:00

As always, this week's Smackdown review comes to you in Fair to Flair's patented WOO!/BOO! format.

WOO!

Mark Henry has become the best thing in WWE, period. He's the best he's ever been in the ring, his promos are simple but effective, not unlike the classic monsters of the 80s and 90s, and he just has this presence that's always been missing from his character. Anytime I naively say that someone's "ship has sailed," I just need to look at Mark Henry and see that that's never the case. I loved the old school in-ring interview with Booker T and the subsequent destruction of The Great Khali was nice as well. Henry adding Khali's head to his Hall of Pain was a nice touch, they haven't done enough of that stuff since he entered the feud with Orton, so I was glad to see it make a comeback.

Evan Bourne vs. Jack Swagger was a really, really fun match. The crowd was hot, the outside players did their job perfectly without detracting from the match and the feud got hotter. I'm sure some folks are bummed that Evan Bourne lost in his hometown, but that's what WWE always does. The city is going to cheer for their hometown hero no matter what, so having him lose is going to get the opponent instant heat, which Swagger and Ziggler had. Loving the Cougar's Cubs team as well, hoping Vickie continues to expand her clientele.

I might be alone on this one, but I like the Sin Cara vs. Sin Cara storyline, especially with the Dark Sin Cara mask being revealed during this segment. I expect most fans aren't aware of who or what a "Mistico" is, but context clues should've gotten the point across. Here's hoping both guys are on point for their match tonight, it's a great opportunity for them to shake off the negativity that has surrounded them.

David Otunga: Ace Attorney has massive potential and the Alliance to End Triple H is something they should've been doing for years with John Cena. I love the idea of guys who have separate stories and goals coming together for a huge agenda, so I can't wait to see where this goes.

Wonky ending aside, Cody Rhodes vs. Sheamus was my favorite wrestling match this week. Cody has just been absolutely fantastic as of late and deserves mad respect yo for those staples in his head. Great back and forth action with an ending that's become far too typical for Sheamus matches lately, Christian interfering, but it was fun nonetheless. Still, you'd think with the talents of Sheamus and Christian, they could come up with some better spice for this feud than "you interfere in my match then I'll interfere in your match."

Zack Ryder gets to be in a glorified squash match and he's not the squashee? Sucks for JTG, but that's a nice little endorsement for Ryder. Fingers crossed that he's in line for an IC Title shot when it's time to move Cody Rhodes up to the World Title scene.

BOO!

Kelly Kelly: Queen of the Victory Roll is getting old, and I've enjoyed where they've been going with Kelly.

I still don't get why Johnny Ace is on TV.

Where does Christian vs. Randy Orton fit into the WOO!/BOO! dynamic? It's tough to say since they always deliver a good match, but I honestly can't remember the last time when two people wrestled this much in three months, hell, Chris Benoit and Booker T didn't wrestle this much during a Best of Seven series! The match was enjoyable, despite another silly ending, but c'mon. Things did veer into WOO! territory with Christian and Cody Rhodes ganging up on Orton, but slid back to BOO!land when Orton overcame the odds and managed to get one over on ol' Mark Henry. Psh, celebrate now Randall, but tonight, it's all about wig splittage.

Good Smackdown. Obviously Hell in a Cell came quickly, so there was nothing they could've done on this show to give the PPV a "proper" build, but the stories have come together quite nicely. This is always an odd time for WWE, the SummerSlam to Survivor Series limbo, sometimes also known as the SummerSlam to Royal Rumble limbo, but as long as Smackdown continues strong wrestling matches and simple storytelling, I'm not too fussed.

Way Too Early

2011-09-29T06:03:00.001-04:00

Community is on NBC tonight at 8pm est... watch it, or else I hate you.

Way Too Early

2011-09-28T06:08:00.000-04:00

Weird Al Yankovic - 'Party in the CIA'

WWE Raw - September 26, 2011

2011-09-26T21:03:00.015-04:00

And with the relaunch of Kick-Out!!, the Raw live blog returns! Refresh your page for ongoing coverage and follow the Twitter feed for the ongoing absurdity.

And we begin with the COO, HHH! He's also the King of Kings, which I guess would make him the KOK. Massive reaction for The Game, even though he's a megalomaniac, who committed the gravest of sins in the history of professional wrestling... he fired The Miz. Heresy! So Triple H fined TruMiz half a million dollars and used them to get one more main event... wow, that's kind of a dick move. Who is he, Jeff Jarrett?

Luckily, Dolph Ziggler & Vickie Guerrero are here to save the day from this megalomaniac, but Dolphy Z is suffering a jaw fracture after getting punched by Wolvie. Hey, that adamantium skeleton is no joke.

Cody Rhodes joins the party next, also the victim of a disgusting attack last week, when Randy Orton made his head go splodes. Staples? Yeah, Cody's got them... nine in his head, actually. Triple H brushes him off, saying he should go attack Orton on his front lawn like a real man would. Maybe he should break JR's arm like a real man would?

Christian's out next, continuing the insurrection, but he's not getting his well-deserved title shot, instead he has to fight Sheamus on Sunday, Randy Orton on Friday and John Cena tonight. Well that hardly seems fair, clearly there's a conspiracy afoot.

Dolph's not getting off easy either, he has to defend his US Title tonight against Zack Ryder. Hey, that's not fair either, at least make it Title vs. Title with the Internet Championship on the line!

And now Cody Rhodes has to defend the IC Title in a 10-man battle royal?! Oh come on, clearly Triple H is coming apart at the seams. He doesn't have the composure for this job!

Intercontinental Championship Battle Royal is our opening contest and these are always the hardest matches to write about, so let's make it even worse by involving both Sin Caras! Bodies are flying everywhere very quickly and we're already down to the final four as I write this sentence: Sheamus, Ezekiel Jackson, Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes. That was fast. Rhodes dumps DiBiase, outsmarts Big Zeke and it's down to just him and the Celtic Warrior! Sheamus, like his hair, is on fire, but Christian provides the distraction and returns the favor from Smackdown and Rhodes retains! Christian sneaks in a few shots and asks Sheamus how it feels to be cost a shot at a title. I would assume not good. Not good at all, sir.

Kelly Kelly & Eve vs. Beth Phoenix & Natalya up next and the Divas of Doom finally have spiked shoulder pads! Natalya is annihilating Eve right now, locking her in a nasty submission move that I honestly don't know the actual name for. Almost like an Indian Death Lock meets the Haas of Pain and it's beautiful. Kelly gets the hot tag, but The Glamazon is a bucket of ice water; Polish Hammer to the face, Glam Slam and Beth Phoenix easily defeats the Divas Champion. Clock is ticking, Kell!

And we're moving right into our next match, The World's Strongest Champion, Mark f'n Henry vs. The Great Khali. Khali's been oddly decent lately and Mark Henry is the best thing going in professional wrestling, so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued by this match. Khali comes into ring all smiles, but gets a title to his skull and a World's Strongest Slam. Okay, the match doesn't actually happen, but that was awesome nonetheless. "YOU GONNA MAKE ME PAY A FINE?! EVERYONE'S GONNA PAY!" I am not joking when I say this man is the best thing in wrestling right now.

Hey everybody, it's John Cena, who is inexplicably WWE Champion. I've been away for a little while and I haven't really got to express my opinion on the fact that John Cena winning the WWE Title at Night of Champions was really, really stupid. I like John Cena, but I just don't get it. Cena vs. Del Rio vs. Punk at Hell in a Cell? That makes sense. Cena regaining the title in that match would make some sense, but winning it back at NOC? Yeah, pointless. We shall see though, I expect a big match, even if Cena's sell is a little over the top here.

John Cena vs. Christian is our 10pm main event, with CM Punk & Alberto Del Rio on commentary. Match starts off very fast paced, big baaaaaaack body drop from John Cena, NASTY tornado DDT from Christian and the crowd is red hot! Of course, we're getting all the exciting stuff out of the way so Del Rio can run in and cause the DQ finish. Surely we'll get an impromptu tag match with Cena and Punk against Del Rio and Christian? No, just a really uninspired promo about hell from Del Rio. Get it, because Hell in a Cell?

Ah, Del Rio vs. Punk later tonight.

Zack Ryder vs. Dolph Ziggler, US Title is on the line and I want to root for Zack Ryder, but he used Hugh Jackman to get this title shot, how can I cheer for something so despicable? I mean come on, did you see Kate & Leopold?! Jack Swagger finally gets on board with the idea of Cougar's Cubs and helps Ziggler retain, but as they're beating down Ryder, Air Boom makes the save and holy shit, we have a genuinely interesting Tag Title feud! Teddy Long comes out and decides to keep the party going like only T-Lo can, six-man tag match, playa! Cubs gotta find a third man, but the match is next!

Looks like there's no luck for the Cubs, it's Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger vs. Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne & Zack Ryder in a 3-on-2 handicap match. Blah to the handicap match, they could've at least dragged out Heath Slater, he would've been a good fall guy.

Instead, Vickie finds Beefy Hugh Jackman... oh wait, that's Mason Ryan! But Ryan isn't on their side, he obliterates Ziggler and Swagger?! Well, that seems slightly unnecessary, but it does allow Zack Ryder to pick up a second pinfall victory over the US Champion!

Backstage, David Otunga is leading an insurrection with all the people Triple H has wronged tonight. That's right, he's getting OSHA involved!

Main Event time! CM Punk vs. Alberto Del Rio, at least I think it's the main event. It's a going on a little early for Raw, but this match should be excellent if given enough time. John Cena is on commentary and all the entrances put this at a more typical start time for a Raw main event. Can't see this one ending without serious shenanigans though, perhaps even an appearance from our Conspiracy Duo?

But hey, rock solid wrestling with no shenanigans? Okay! Punk and Del Rio go back and forth, but Punk connects with a NASTY kick to the skull and picks up a clean 1-2-3 victory! The Hell in a Cell lowers while Punk and Cena tee-off on Ricardo Rodriguez, but Del Rio DESTROYS both of them with a steel chair. Okay, so SOME shenanigans after all. I guess they're saving TruMiz for Sunday?

Overall, a pretty good Raw. Lots of storyline advancement, but perhaps more importantly, great character advancement. Motivations are clear, goals have been stated, people seem to have a purpose, which is something that's been lacking from WWE TV as of late. The wrestling wasn't bad either, nothing knock-your-socks off amazing, but perfectly acceptable for weekly TV. Maybe my wrestling detox helped, but I thoroughly enjoyed this show. What did you think?

Way Too Early

2011-09-26T06:07:00.000-04:00

Cody Rhodes goes splodes... this is one of the most disgusting things I've seen in awhile, you can see the head 'splosion around 2:15. Blurg.

Ring of Honor debuts in syndication

2011-09-25T10:46:00.000-04:00

Welcome back to Kick-Out!!, it's been a long few weeks without internet and a switch in cable providers, along with other assorted life things, but I figured now would be a great time to relaunch the site with a brand new wrestling show! Ring of Honor has been without a television deal for several months, but the purchase from Sinclair Broadcast Group generated a lot of buzz... which they promptly killed with the debut episode.

The first impression I got from ROH's new show was that it looks very, very low budget. That's not necessarily a bad thing, WWE's over-produced shows work for them, but I miss wrestling in a smoky room. But it's 2011, and running a new television show in standard-def is pretty inexcusable. Maybe it was just my local affiliate, but they have an HD channel, Smackdown aired in HD on it during its MyNetwork days, so I'm not sure. Either way, it looked embarrassing.

The embarrassment continued when the first person I saw was Kevin Kelly, a never-was from 1990s WWE who now writes ridiculous articles for Wrestlezone, like how foreign-born wrestlers can never be stars. Seriously. Kelly was our lead commentator, which made me reach for the mute button on Shotgun Saturday Night in 1998, but on the bright side, we did get the return of Nigel McGuinness on color commentary. I thought Nigel did a good job, even though he was barely audible due to the horrible audio quality.

There's really no point in talking about the two matches that were on the show, it's Ring of Honor, you know the wrestling was good. The Kings of Wrestling vs. Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team was a perfect main event to showcase what ROH is all about, it's just unfortunate that it looked so terrible. Granted, looks aren't everything. I wouldn't judge a video game on its graphics... unless it was sloppy and ugly, which is exactly how ROH looked.

The sad irony was early in the show when Kevin Kelly went to the "Tweet of the Week," where one viewer said you should watch Ring of Honor because it wasn't 1997. But this show looked like a rerun from one of the many random wrestling promotions that popped up in 1997. Hearing about "tweets" and "Justin Bieber" was just jarring since I thought I was watching an old VHS tape.

On the plus side, I don't know if they were in a bigger arena or if the 4:3 aspect ratio helped, but the room looked more filled than it did for any of the HDNet shows. That was always my biggest gripe with the HDNet broadcast, it made a room of 500 people look like a closet of 50, and that was fixed here, at least for this week.

If it sounds like I'm being overly harsh or critical, it's because I genuinely like Ring of Honor and want them to gain new fans and succeed, but this relic of a wrestling broadcast isn't going to cut it. I wasn't like some fans and thought a move to Saturday nights at 10pm was going to be a game changer for the professional wrestling industry, but it could certainly expose ROH to a wider audience than HDNet. Now? I'm not so sure.

Way Too Early

2011-09-20T07:13:00.000-04:00

Foo Fighters counter the Westboro Baptist Church.

Way Too Early

2011-09-19T06:15:00.000-04:00

Missed the PPV last night due to cable and internet issues, but reading the results of the clusterfuck main event, I thought this was appropriate.

Way Too Early

2011-09-15T06:07:00.000-04:00

Hope you can forgive me for sporadic posts lately, been enjoying the married life. Unfortunately, Kane did not emerge from the floor during our ceremony.