Summerslam

Not convinced I really needed to see a pensioner and a beardy fat man get ripped apart with barbed wire - again, but apart from that Summerslam wasn't too bad.

Chavo vs Rey was pretty decent, as expected, with a decent array of high-flyingness on display. Was good to see Chavo back in action after his hiatus - looked pretty sharp I thought, and will hopefully stick around for a while. Hopefully this will also be the end of Eddie being dragged up and Vicky being roped into stuff.

Sabu vs Big Show wasn't bad either. Glad they managed to avoid a screw job ending for once - pretty much had enough of screw job endings in ECW already!! Hopefully now they can also go a week or two without the ECW title being on the line. Apart from this Tuesday of course....

Hogan vs Orton was always going to be pretty pointless - Randy did a half decent job of selling everything that came within a metre of two of him - the Hulkster did his best to remain vertical and wave his arms about. Although trying to get him to leave the ring at the end of the thing took about as long as it takes for the Undertaker to get into a ring. Let's just hope that Taker vs Hulkster doesn't happen at ECW, as the show would have to be extended just to get them in and out again....

And where was Brooke ffs?!?! I'd much rather have seen the Brookester tart about in the ring for 10 minutes than her dad. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway.

Looks like they brought back the scriptwriter that penned the whole United States Championship fiasco, and it appears he still hasn't thought of anything else than Sharmell getting involved and screwing over whoever Booker happens to be up against.
Was really starting to piss me off last time as well....

DX vs the McMahons was fine. JR must have been wearing his black and blue tinted glasses, when he suggested the HHH's back was heavily bruised - looked fairly ok to me - unlike poor HBK's floppy looking right arm at the end, which kinda killed the usual DX-type post-victory celebrations. Not quite sure where the end of this storyline leaves DX, or the McMahons, or the Spirit Squad. Surely they can't drag it all out much longer - although having said that it'll probably headline Wrestlemania next year now!!

Last but not least was Cena vs Edge. Which I'm sure was probably very good, but regrettably I kept drifting off to sleep during it, as it was rapidly approaching 4am. Although even if I'd been asleep the whole time I could probably have guessed at an Edge victory, via a screwjob of some description. Can't be too challenging writing WWE scripts.

So what could we have for Summerslam next year, judging by this year? My card prediction is:

The exhumed corpse of Eddie & Vicky Guerrero vs Chavo & Rey
Foley vs Flair in an hung, drawn & quartered, last man alive match
The McMahons vs DX
The Fabulous Moolah vs Randy Orton
Booker T vs Edge in a screwjob me senseless match (w Lita & Sharmell)
Jeff Hardy vs RVD vs Sabu in a 'Grab the Narcotics' ladder match
Great Khali vs a Bangal Tiger

Theme tune by SatanWank. Can't wait....

Musical Interlude

WWE and ECW are both very fond of their rock intros. Some of which are actually pretty decent some of which are decidedly arse. So let's have a little look to see what are the hits and misses of the wrestling-related musical world.

Let's start with the hits - Chris Benoit's theme (Our Lady Peace - Whatever) is excellent in my opinion, and makes a very tasty ringtone I might add, as it starts off fairly quiet and non-irritating, but then kicks off nicely after a few seconds.

Edge's theme (Metalingus) is again a quality track, much in the style of any half-decent American fairly-moderate rock bands (and Bush, of course!!), with lots of nice riffs and a fairly solid tune throughout. Slightly amended for the intro, but pretty much identical aside from that.
Kane's theme (Finger Eleven - Slow Chemical) is ok, although it's fairly dull aside from the bits they play in the intro.

RVD also has a quality intro (Breaking Point - One of a Kind), which is a nice bouncy rock number, with a fairly pleasant crescendo towards the end.

Quite like DX's theme now as well. Sounds a lot like early RATM, which for me is no bad thing. And it goes without saying that Ric Flair's is excellent, especially at firework displays etc!

The RAW intro (The Union Underground - Across the Nation) is ok again, although fairly repetitive and not particularly creative, with no greatly exciting parts. All a touch samey. Still no idea if they say 'fucking' in it, but one would assume not seeing as they play it before 9pm! The Smackdown! one (Drowning Pool - Rise Up) is similar in terms of sameyness, and you'd need a degree in linguistics to work out what the fuck they say in half of it. Again with the ECW theme (Drowning Pool - Bodies) there's not a long going on apart from the quality bit they use in the intro. Drowning Pool must specialise in songs that only have 30 seconds of quality in them!!

Obviously, Sandman's theme WAS excellent when it was 'Enter Sandman', but has now become rather wank by comparison. As has pretty much everyone else on ECW's music, which has also become rather generic of late. Sure it will gradually improve though....

Continuing with the rubbish, Randy Orton's music shows a lot of potential in the intro, but is as dull as dishwater when you listen to the whole thing. And everyone else's doesn't particularly grab me either. Yeah, Rey's is ok, and Cena's is fine, but they're not exactly classic musical experiences I'm sure you'll agree. And Hulk Hogan's is so fucking camp and trite if you're not American that we laugh whenever it comes on....

So there ends my WWE musical interlude. Normal service will resume shortly....

Getting Old

Am I getting old, or did the whole Chavo / Rey thing come over as completely tasteless and cringeworthy?! Especially when poor Eddie's widow was dragged into the storyline again, trying to 'break up' the two feuding stars. I just can't see how they keep agreeing to be involved in these storylines - hopefully after what you must assume will be a match at Summerslam, Eddie will be left alone and that'll be the end of his name being dragged up every few weeks. All too much for me....

Anyhoo, the rest of Smackdown! was ok. Nothing particularly breathtaking - two more 'interrupted' endings, Batista getting his revenge on Mr Kennedy, who did his best to mangle the Animal's knee, and Finlay vs Regal again for the US Championship, which I still think should be competed for by people from the US. Just like the Intercontinental Championship should be for people NOT from the US. Hey ho.

JBL's commentary plunged new depths of faux racism, this time against native Americans, Canadians and the French. Although, to be fair, 'Silvan has two things wrong with him - he's Canadian and he's French' did perhaps have a certain charm to it!!

Thousands of new superstars seemed to debut this week, none of which seemed particularly exciting, or with any real character. They even managed to get Taker to perform at a non-PPV event, which certainly suggests roster issues!!

Summerslam is looking fairly decent already though - Taker vs Great Khali, McMahons vs DX, surely Eddie vs Chavo, Hogan vs Orton, Edge vs Cena. Should be great.

And with the other great news of Jeff Hardy returning to the WWE, all is starting to look fairly bright again. Hopefully this will also be good news for Matt Hardy, who might actually get some decent storylines again....

RAW Logo!!

I'm in one of my anal moods this evening, having just watched the recording of RAW from Monday night. Now this might just be a UK thing, but why oh why is the RAW logo that they show leading into an ad break in the Sky Sports 3 showing on Thursday night, fucked?!?!?

As you all know, it's supposed to look like it is in the picture.

But for some reason on the ad breaks, it's fucked!! Only very slightly admittedly, but fucked none-the-less. For anyone as desperately dull as me, have a look out the next time you watch RAW on a Thursday, and you'll see the logo but with the top left-hand corner of the 'R' of RAW bizarrely covered over by the silver metal thingie! Either it's like that all over the world, or Sky Sports have done a special fucked logo just to piss me off whenever I watch it.

Rant over. Thought the actual program was very good again - very well put together indeed, and Trish even almost got the Stratusfaction to work as well. But for the love of God, why on earth hasn't that Erica bird been kicked off the Diva search contest yet?! She can't talk, dance, look remotely sexy, or even wave! Maybe they're lining her up for ECW....

Raw comedy & ECW quality

Enjoyed RAW again this week (as in last week!). There's definitely a good comedy element to it all again these days. Cena was as confident and relaxed on the mic as I've seen him, and seemed to be genuinely freestyling a bit, leading to a series of the cutest faces that Maria could muster. Shawn Michaels was also in pretty good form, comedy-wise, and with the birth of HHH's baby the whole evening seemed to be done in pretty good spirits. It even looked for a little while as if Shawn wasn't going to be put up against the Spirit Squad for a change. I guess all good things must come to an end though....

ECW was decent again, and the main event between Kane & Big Show was probably as good a match between the two as you could get. Fairly well paced, decent rope action, good use of chairs and tables, reasonably decent screw-job ending. All went very well indeed I thought. Heaven forbid, I also thought the Vampire looked pretty decent. A few nice moves on display, half-decent finisher - didn't look like a tedious Sci Fi gimmick after all. A

And with RVD, Kurt Angle and CM Punk all due back very soon, ECW is very much picking up pace. Just hope they negotiate a 2 hour show before too long, as the roster is getting big enough and talented enough to merit one now methinks. We'll see....

The Bash

Back from holiday, and watched the repeat of the Great American Bash this evening. First off, for someone who hadn't read all the pre-event news on the net, the whole event seemed rather odd to say the least! Khali being replaced by Big Show for starters.

A Punjabi prison match without the big bloke from the Punjab was a trifle odd even in WWE terms. I've seen s couple of polls that rate this match as being the highlight of the night, but my personal view is that it was bollocks! Big Show looked knackered from the get-go, humping round the flimsy 'prison' doing very little for the majority of the match. The 'razor-sharp' bamboo canes that were at the top of the prison, that made the inner cage impossible to escape from for nearly all of the match, suddenly became completely pointless, as Taker merrily climbed past them towards the end, as if he forgot they were there!

Then there were the authentic Punjab tables that collapsed surprisingly like WWE tables and looked surprisingly like the shitty WWE school trestle tables that collapse every week. Then there was the embarassing ending, which was nothing if not fairly comical - Show and Taker were supposed to come crashing through the outer wall, with their sheer strength and bulk, but it just looked suspiciously as if the outer wall was actually a rather flimsy gate that fell open just before impact. Rubbish!!! I think someone in the crowd could have farted and that would have had the same devestating impact on the outer wall!! Then as they toppled through the wall, Khali (bad liver and all) decided to belatedly climb the cage, for no apparent reason. And then couldn't seem to get back down again.

As the Doctor would say, 'Mr Khali, if you're well enough to climb cages then you're well enough to amble about chopping people on the head and kicking people.'

Anyway, the only thing that the Punjabi prison match showed me was that it must be pretty damn easy to escape from a Punjabi prison. Must be rife with crime over there. A Wormwood Scrubs prison match - now that would be more like it....

The other odd one, if you hadn't read the build-up, was Helms against Hardy. I like Matt Hardy, but he just seems to get used to fill up unforseen gaps in cards at the moment. Like a supply teacher. Completely no logic in this match, and not even a hint of why it was taking place. I guess they just hoped we wouldn't notice. Pretty decent match though to be fair. With Hardy now having gone through the pointless exercise of tag-teaming with Tatanka and Road Warrior Animal (and subsequent pointless bust up) I hope they think of something useful to do with him soon, bless him....

The final oddment was Regal vs Finlay, sans Lashley. An Irishman and an Englishman competing for the United States Championship, following Lashley's enforced absence from the seemingly contagious liver problems that are plaguing the WWE. Pretty slow affair, no crowd interest at all, never a chance of Regal getting the title. Bit of a pointless exercise really.

The tag team match was excellent I thought. Lots of effort, lots of high flying. Good quality throughout, although with both London and Kendrick having seemingly put on a good few stone in recent weeks, maybe they also have some kind of liver difficulties?! Time will tell....

Main event was ok. Chavo finally screwed Rey after what seems like an eternity, leaving Booker T as the main draw on SD! and Batista on the road to regaining his belt without the need to take it off Rey. Perfect. Hopefully at some point he'll stop injuring everyone though, or there'll be no one left for him to fight. Mr Kennedy's head injuries did look rather nasty....

Enough of the bash - quick last word on ECW - why the hell do they keep bringing people in from other brands to challenge for the ECW title, with seemingly no build-up or reasoning whatsoever?! All they seem to be saying is that the ECW title is so easy that anyone can just turn up and suddenly be number 1 contender for it. WTF would Taker want the ECW title?! Why would Kane want it?! And how do they decide any of it?!

All very arbitary still on ECW at the moment. A good few weeks in and still seemingly no rivalries or storylines have been even partly developed as yet. Get a fucking move on people!

No doubt next week we'll see Maria come across and challenge for the title....

Going away

Leaving the country for two weeks tomorrow on holiday and then work, Hopefully all will be enjoyable and nothing horrible will go wrong when I least expect it!!

Somehow get the impression that Bulgaria won't have wrestling on its TV channels, so tonight's ECW will be my last bit of action for a fortnight. Hopefully by the time I get back, they'll still be some wrestlers left that aren't suspended - bit of a tall order I know, but hopefully at least one of them isn't on steriods, herb, or painkillers.

If I get back on the Friday night to find that the Smackdown! main event is Funaki vs Nunzio, then I'll know something bad's happened....