Tuesday, July 26, 2011
CM PUNK AND CHUCK TAYLOR: KINDRED SPIRITS
Friday, July 15, 2011
07/11/11 RAW REVIEW: CM PUNK = VOICE OF THE VOICELESS (ICE CREAM BARS HAVE NO VOICE)
Dear readers of Fair To Flair and lovers of pizza and body slams (what a maneuver!) everywhere,
I refuse to review anything on Raw this week involving CM Punk.
There’s a point in my wrestling-watching life when I go back and rewatch certain promos and get the same amount of goosebumps each time, and simply can’t say anything about it to make it better/funnier/more interesting/etc.
Instead, I will just link you to some CM Punk gifs (like this one or this one or this one or this one and look at this one or maybe even just this one jpeg where six months ago CM Punk told us not blink for the next six months holy crap), watch the PPV on Sunday, and feel like I’m eleven years old again discovering my body getting caught up in pro wrestling.
Signed,
Mitch (PIZZABODYSLAM)
CM PUNK TALKED ME INTO THE BUILDING
Okay, I lied. Sometimes you gotta say just one thing about thing you love so much you don’t want to ruin it by saying too many things about it. So, ahem:
I LOVE THIS.
I wish I had video of myself on the literal edge of my seat as Punk managed to go from funny to serious in a totally non-John Cena way, and from loved to hated in a totally organic way, even if he was just running down the city they were in. It was so perfect. I shrieked when Cena punched him. I’ve watched it at least three times since, and I (as mentioned above) still get goosebumps.
That’s all I want to say. I don’t want to dissect or analyze or speculate or fantasy book or do anything that could ruin Sunday for me. So I’m going to close my eyes and plug my ears until then, goodbye.
But first, large men falling down:
MARK HENRY VS. BIG SHOW: RAMPAGE WORLD TOUR
Anyone else love this feud?
Like, just the feud. I don’t mean the matches or the anticipation I feel when either one of them is about to do something (I feel nothing). I mean the actual concept of this feud, where both Mark Henry and Big Show, week-in and week-out attempt to destroy something more hilarious (like Mark Henry throwing a man just INTO THE AIR) or participate in some hilarious stunt that escalates by the week. It’s like they’re picking who hits first in baseball by going hand-over-hand on a bat until one of them sneaks their fat finger on the top of the handle. Except the bat is Drew McIntyre.
Can I ask what exactly we are to believe Big Show and Mark Henry fell on, if not just cardboard boxes with a tablecloth on it? I love the wrestling logic of the black tablecloth, as if it’s supposed to make whatever compressible material they have beneath it disappear. Why couldn’t they have fallen on that spark machine that’s always found near the stage? That’s fun AND illogical. Everyone loves sparks. Everyone except Jeff Hardy, if you remember that one time when he danced out too many fireworks.
KELLY KELLY IS MY FAVOURITE KIND OF HILARIOUS: ACCIDENTALLY!
Four seconds into her match on Raw she managed to find herself on the ground with her arms wrapped around her own body in a “quit hugging yourself” bully-type move. YOU ARE THE CHAMPION. No champion of anything, potentially even the World Self-Hugging Champion, could manage to fall down, get spun around and tied up in a Johnny Saint knot four seconds into a match.
Then again, no champion of anything would rub their butthole in the face of their opponent. Okay, maybe John Cena and Randy Orton would, but apparently they can get away with it.
Kelly Kelly also may have legitimized the wrestling stomp. The way she was selling the stompdown the Bellas were giving her, it was as if they were stomping her organs into OBLITERATITRY. Thank God Eve was there to save her jump on her own face.
Honourable Mention: R-Truth and spiders, apparently.
He insinuated that if the Money In The Bank briefcase has any spiders in it, he will shit himself. I probably would too. Because what the actual ****, RON
MONDAY NIGHT RAW 07/11/11
DISLIKED...
DAVID OTUNGA, TAG TEAM CHAMPION
OH. MAN. You suck. You might be the worst tag team wrestler to ever hold the belts like three times or whatever unbelievable number it is.
John Cena, famous serial murderer of World Tag Team Champions, is down in the corner and the referee has his back turned. Here’s your chance, David. C’mon buddy, take it to ‘im! Use that handicap advantage like the Tag Team Champion you are! Here we gooooo AAAANNND! WOW. Wow. Just a soft little kick. One little tap. Like a gentle nudge. The referee is still turned around, you could go back and…no? You’re good? Okay. Cool. Cool.
Maybe, instead of Googling yourself, you should Google tag team wrestling and learn how to **** a person up when you have the chance, and then John Cena wouldn’t wrestle you to death and blow you a tiny kiss at the end of it all.
YOU WANNA TOUCH MY SISTER?!?!??
Such a weird thing to say.
The Bella Twins deliver promos like evil, teenaged Sweeney Sisters. The teenaged part is when they start the promo with “Wait, hold on, um, hellooooo…wow” and reference Katy Perry Proactiv commercials. The Sweeney Sisters part is when they trade one-liners and look to the crowd for a reaction, and generally receive none, and mix up Kelly Kelly with Katy Perry. The evil part is how you can look but you can’t touch (but you probably could).
But, I will give them credit: they annoy the ever-loving shit out of me. So, kudos?
Yes, kudos. I’ve decided they get the kudos. Because Melina also annoys me to no foreseeable end (what were those melty crazed duck faces she was making at the start of the match?), but is never on TV so my hate for her goes unsolved. At least I get to see the Bellas get slapped around every once and a while.
The only kudos I’ll give Melina (I’m giving a lot of backhanded kudos here) is that she sold Kelly Kelly’s Fame-Asser/Rocker Dropper finisher like instant death. The way she laid there made me wish she stayed there like CM Punk did that one time, except the show would have to continue and everyone would have to wrestle around her.
MICROPHONE PARADE
Seven guys lining up to interrupt each other is funny any way you look at it.
Logically, in order to come out in time, they had to be near each other backstage before they went out. I like to think that they asked each other what they had to say, then started scrambling for loose microphones because they disagreed with one another.
Part of me wishes this was a never-ending microphone parade (it almost was), and they just ran out the rest of the show with the Great Khali taking exception to something Mason Ryan said in disagreement with Black Ref who came out to challenge Man Mountain Rock who interrupted the ramblings of me who took this joke too far.
Honourable Mention: Dolph Ziggler has charisma I swear.
Did anyone watch that season of NXT where he was constantly ad-libbing from the stage and elbow-dropping novelty foam hats? He’s hilarious! Let him say things and act the way he normally would instead of having him make bad breath/possum diaper vomit jokes.
I have no real knowledge as to how much of any wrestling promo is scripted or not scripted. But just based on how humans work, I can confidently say that some people are better at being given “lines” and delivering them, while other people are better at saying what they want to say. Or something. I don’t know. Line?
Honourable Honourable Mention: I almost forgot.
07/04/11 RAW REVIEW: JOHN CENA, AMERICAN MALE
SHE FELL ON HER BOTTOM INTO SOME CAKE
Right in the face of all the fat jokes Jerry Lawler can Google (he might still use Alta Vista), Vickie Guerrero was ****ing hilarious on Raw. That is my favourite kind of humour (not the butt humour [although lol butts] but [lol but] stay with me for a second plz wait stop).
No, not the falling on to her bottom (and then onto her boobies) into a decorative cake part; the singing to Dolph Ziggler part, where she is COMPLETELY UNAWARE that maybe the fans might not like what she’s doing.
I love the heel who is one hundred percent blind to the fact that their actions may in fact upset the people paying to see the show. Vickie was SO offended by the booing:
“HOW RUDE. I’m just trying to sing a happy birthday song to America and Dolph Ziggler when it’s not really his birthday, all while you’re waiting for someone to come out and beat us up and make good pro-wrestling use of this here cake that I suppose I expect Dolph to consume in its entirety, because otherwise why did I make a whole huge cake for a one-person party. EXCUSE MEEEE.”
Bonus points to the guy in the front row who stood up RIGHT AS Vickie said “everyone stand up.” Double bonus points to this kid’s psychotic thumbs down.
R-TRUTH IN ADVERTISING
We can now add Flo and Señor Jimmy to R-Truth’s ever-expanding, Bruce Springsteen-like universe (not to be confused with the Bruce Springsteen Universe, his legion of fans) of fictional characters. So that’s Flo, Señor Jimmy, Little Jimmy, Big Jimmy (was there ever a Medium Jimmy? Let’s just round up the whole Jimmy Family), and of course his long lost son, who, bad news…is still lost. The good news is, his estranged father just saved money on car insurance by switching to Geico.
R-Truth inexplicably plugging Geico (and referencing a SECOND INSURANCE COMPANY, which went over my head but did not go over others’) adds yet another layer to his perpetually deteriorating psyche. Yes. A layer added to a psyche that’s deteriorating. Maybe I’m crazy too?
Speaking of Señor Jimmy, did anyone else notice that fan who made a Señor Jimmy sign MID-SHOW? How over are you (or, rather, how over are the random things you say) when you don’t have to wait until next week to see if the fans put your new catchphrase on a sign, because they’re rabidly arts and crafts-ing them right there in the audience?
3 SECONDS OF ZACK RYDER
Man! Zack Ryder is finally ge—
MONDAY NIGHT RAW 07/04/11
DISLIKED...
Photo - WWE.com
JOHN CENA: PROUD ‘MURICAN, UNABASHED JORTS ENTHUSIAST
If there’s one thing I thought this ****ING EPIC CM Punk story needed, it was John Cena coming out on Independence Day to defend the First Amendment and talk about his jorts until Vince McMahon started half-shooting about Hogan, followed by Cena pretend shooting about crowd signs and Daniel Bryan. Vince said he’ll fire John Cena if he loses and man I wonder what will happen will Cena be Free or Fired now because he loves America and the WWE and my brain has strated too shut off nowwnknfj…
I appreciate the execution of it all. Vince McMahon is one of my favourite people to listen to speak about anything, even more so nowadays as his voice is getting gurglier and his suits are getting powderier. John Cena wasn’t crappy and didn’t let even one wiener joke slip out. But I still hate this new, completely unnecessary twist that has been shoehorned in to what was an awesome story to begin with.
Why do we need John Cena’s stupid job on the line AGAIN? It’s already been established that it doesn’t matter if he gets fired, because if he gets fired he’ll just keep showing up until he tricks someone into putting his job back on the line again and then he adjusts their attitude and I’m back my time is now, this is all i got, ad infinitum.
I (and I assume most people) now expect one of two things to happen at Money In The Bank:
- 1. John Cena wins.
- 2. CM Punk wins, MITB winner cashes in immediately.
- 3. YOU STUPID OLD MAN I’M A SNAKE
Either way, we don’t get a “CENA’S FREEEEEE” story so soon after the last one, and Punk still leaves without the belt.
Before the firing angle was thrown in, there was at least some faint possibility of Punk winning and walking away somehow. Not for real (it’s real to me, etc.), but in the story. Now it feels like they’ve handcuffed themselves just so they could have some kind of “shocking” ending to a taped Raw. But then again, it could be something else altogether, because I am routinely wrong in predicting the thing I’ve been watching for twenty years or whatever it is, can’t really remember because I’ve been watching wrestling for twenty years of whatever (can’t really remember) and my brain is now a soft goo sloshing around in my head.
AND ANOTHER THING
VIDEO PACKAGE OF CM PUNK SAYING THINGS THAT GOT HIS MIC CUT OFF MADE BY THE PEOPLE WHO CUT HIS MIC OFF
Can someone please explain this to me?
What possible benefit is there from making a video for this feud? There’s a like a week left until they fight, and people know what the Internet is, so let them go there to find out what Punk said, instead of you editing clips of CM Punk’s voice skipping and coloured bars from Stamford together to illustrate how you don’t want him to say the things he’s saying but you’re happy to edit the things he’s saying into a video package.
Just let the announcers use their sombre announcer voice to tell us that CM Punk is suspended for the things he said, and now we’ll move on with the show. The angle generated more than enough interest to carry the feud without a crappy video package. But no. No. NO. Everyone needs a T-shirt and theme music and a cameo on George Lopez Tonight and a video package or else people won’t know that they’re watching a stupid wrestling show.
Sometimes I just wish that logic would supersede the WWE template for more than one week. Other times I wish I could dial back the rage in order to make clear-headed comments on the show but USEDA IS A ROOSTA FROM BREWSTA AND WE CAN’T ALL GET WHAT WE WANT NOW CAN WE?!
… sorry.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter for me. I’ve already bought the show in my mind and no amount of John Cena Free or Feast or Fired angles could undo that.
Now onto the important stuff.
KELLY KELLY’S BUTT IS RUBBING OFF ON EVE
Either Kelly Kelly is somehow convincing Eve that using your butthole to attack a person is much more effective than Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or Eve is just absorbing Kelly’s butt-powers through Tag Team Osmosis. I prefer the scenario where Kelly mentors Eve:
Kelly: Hmm, so you do a standing moonsault?
Eve: I try.
Kelly: Why don’t you try butt****ing the air right before jumping?
Eve: BRILLIANT, now let’s walk to the ring smiling and laughing.
Let’s get Kelly Kelly to involve her butt in every move in her arsenal (lol arse). Or maybe she should just keep getting more and more vulgar with her offense until she’s just hurling her vagina at people like she’s the female Danshoku Dino of the WWE.
Or, at the very least, she should start RKOing people.
Honourable Mention: Wrestling.
Maybe this should’ve been way up there in the WOO!—but in actuality, it probably should’ve been right in the middle. And usually that’s not something I write about. But everything felt so…normal. Nothing stood out as awesome (the only inadvertent noise I made aloud was when Alberto Del Rio did his trademark—or Vintage, as Michael Cole quipped. Also, let’s give him a year in the company before we break out the Vintage line maybe—tumble through the ropes), but nothing stood out as terrible, and that to me makes it the worst. If it’s terrible, then I can laugh and crack wise with myself at least (I need to stop watching this show alone).
Honourable Honourable Mention: Taped shows that are normally live shows.
Even if you avoid spoilers, taped shows are the worst. The editing is way weirder (take Miz and Riley’s backslide), the flow (FLO!) is totally different, and a lot of it is just unexplainable. When a show is live, you really do feel like anything can happen in the World Wrestling Federation for over fifty years the revolutionary force in Sports Entertainment (even though it can’t really but I WANT TO BELIEVE), but when a show is taped all of that is lost.
Honourable Honourable Honourable Mention: Big Andy needs to take his silent rage to a public subway.
On one last note, have you ever really watched Edge’s first titantron video? We all remember the screaming and yelling and running and stuff, but there’s a part where he’s just reaching in a car window grabbing and shaking a guy. And there’s another part where he throws a chop to the belly of some random guy on the street. It’s AMAZING.
Someone gif that up, send it my way and I’ll have a giggle fit in your honour.
06/27/11 RAW ROULETTE REVIEW: PUNK'S MAGNUM OPUS, ALSO SHAWN MICHAELS VS. NATURE
KELLY KELLY GETS A BIG WIN
Kelly won, she’s improving in the ring lately. Good to see Eve still doing stuff. ***1/2
KOFI KINGSTON VS. DOLPH ZIGGLER
They wrestled and it was a match ***3/4
BOOKER T SPINNING THE Rawjkkwdmcmjjjjjjj
ksqsjnnc kdsn wkkfnm,wa **1/2
…
..,,,.l, ,
WHAT AM I DOING?!
My mind was erased after CM Punk reached through the goddamned TV and grabbed every one of us by the balls. I legitimately forgot that anything else happened before Punk’s ****ing MAGNUM OPUS, and that’s okay, because talking about anything but CM Punk at this point seems completely pointless. I mean, who wants to hear my thoughts on Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler on a night when CM Punk doesn’t turn a microphone into a pipebomb?
But, conversely, what can I say about CM Punk that hasn’t already been said? By fans? Wrestlers? Writers? Bloggers? Super popular non-wrestling blogs? People that have jobs that don’t have anything to do with wrestling and believe it to be real? EVERYONE is talking about CM Punk (he’s so hot right now), and I don’t need to tell you why. I could, but that would almost certainly fill up an entire WOO! section because that promo was so WOO! that we’d all OD on WOO! (you know it).
More importantly, I pretty much don’t even want to think about this. I don’t want anyone telling me why it’s a worked shoot or why he’s leaving or why he’s staying or anything else. I want to watch the Summer of Punk sequel and let the goosebumps take over, because it’s extremely rare in today’s mainstream wrestling world to find something to watch that you are obsessed with.
So, I’ve decided that I’ve come full circle and will talk about everything but CM Punk. Except for, y’know, all that stuff I just said.
Now back to Shawn Michaels, moose hunter.
MACMILLAN RIVER ADVENTURES!
I find it hilarious that Shawn Michaels, the character, dresses in sequins and chaps and does a sexy dance, while Shawn Michaels the man (Michael Hickenbottom, I suppose) dresses in hunting apparel and kills bears on the Falconer channel. It’s an incredible juxtaposition that also somehow represents in a nutshell what I love about wrestling.
The preview for MacMillan River Adventures on Raw lead me to believe that they’ll be constantly splicing clips of moose and other woodland creatures running in terror from Shawn Michaels, with clips of HBK dancing and kicking people’s teeth down their throats. I want to believe that the show will be a sixty-minute montage highlighting Shawn’s most awesome moonsaults and most gruesome deer headshots, but I feel like I’ll be let down when I tune in. And I’ve seen enough funny pictures of Shawn Michaels posing with dead bears (here, here or here) or caught fish (here, here) or whatever other hunter things he does that I’ve reached my quota and will never watch his show. Y’know, unless people start linking me to hilarious clips of him skinning big horns and gyrating his hips or something. Then I’ll never not watch.
MARK HENRY VS. CAGE DOOR, WALL
Mark Henry and cage doors have a storied history. He’s getting better as time goes on. You can practically see the Sims learning meter above his head as he fumbles with that thing. But I am happy that they’re doing exactly what I want with Mark Henry - have him break down random objects like he’s Blanka taking apart a car in between stages in Street Fighter.
Or maybe he could make a cameo on Shawn Michaels’ show and corner avalanche moose for fun.
BOOKER T RECAPS RAW IN REAL TIME
At first, I was hesitant to the idea that Booker T would be replacing Candice Michelle’s boobs as the official Raw Roulette wheel spinner. But then he starting delivering raving, speed-induced recaps of every segment after every segment to the people who JUST saw it. It’s like he was trying to sell us on the show we were already watching. I was dying. Maryse couldn’t even process what was happening.
And never mind Booker T’s Kane-summoning powers. “AWWWW the question mark you know what the question mark means right there the question mark means that you got a mystery opponent just kidding Kane’s right here already HIT THE MUSIC right there”
Honourable Mention: Rey Mysterio, Alex Riley and the MEGA COMBO FINISH.
I just got back from New York where I saw ROH Best In The World live and in person, and I’m pretty sure that that combo would’ve put Davey Richards away. Well, maybe (definitely) not. But in WWE’s universe (not to be confused with the WWE Universe), you can lose to any kind of move where you and your opponent just jump and fall down.
I’m pretty sure that Swagger was out after the kick to the head, but that was followed by a 619, an Edgecution DDT, a top rope splash, an apron 2K1 bomb and a crossbow killshot from Shawn Michaels, moose hunter.
Honourable Mention Not Needed Mentioning Again But Here I Go: CM Punk.
It’s officially a one-man show.
RAW ROULETTE
DISLIKED...
Photo - WWE.com
I REMEMBER A TIME WHEN TEXT MESSAGES AND WHEELS DIDN’T DECIDE THE MATCHES OF A WRESTLING SHOW
And that’s a time when an invisible man in the sky with a Gmail account decided the matches. Can we go back to that? WE HAVE TO GO BAAACK
CM Punk recently tried to bring some legitimacy back to the WWE’s match-making process. He came out to the ring and declared that he beat Rey Mysterio, someone who barely ever loses, and John Cena, the WWE Champion, and claimed that he should then be named the #1 Contender to the WWE Championship. But of course, that Anonymous GM chimed in to remind Punk that it doesn’t work that way. It works in whatever way he, the invisible man in the sky, decides, because this is professional wrestling and everyone knows that best way to get what you want is to break into the champion’s home and assault his family or something.
I just want them to reel back the wackiness. Just a bit. Either that, or turn it up to eleven and let the South Park Family Guy manatees pick the matches on Raw next week, and we’ll finally get the Undertaker vs. Eve & Dean Ambrose Handicap Halftime Heat Street Fight Pillow Fight Over The Top Off With The Top Match I’ve been waiting for.
SIN CARA VS. EVAN BOURNE
EEP. Before you judge me (don’t judge me), it’s not what you think.
I thought the match was fun and was exactly what we need more of in WWE today (maybe minus the stripper lighting): wrestling that isn’t predictable beat-by-beat. What I didn’t like was how it didn’t click in that perfect way, and how the announcers didn’t really seem to know how to put it over as it began (“pff, what’re they doing, WRESTLING?!”). I’m worried that because it wasn’t the five-and-a-half star, white-hot DGUSA speedfest that was expected by some, they won’t get to do it again.
I’m also worried that from the way his head bounced off the mat during the finish, Evan Bourne’s going to be the one “without face.” HAAHAH? …
BIG SHOW WOW YOU ARE FIRED UP OKAY PLEASE STOP
Dear The Big Show,
Please refrain from coming out to the ring like you’re in Bring It On 8 and you’re super jazzed to win the big cheering competition. I literally had to rewind your big stupid raindance just to annoy myself. Don’t make me get Kurt Angle to tranquilize you. Or Shawn Michaels to crossbow your teeth down your throat.
Signed,
Me
Aside: Michael Cole running down the laundry list of Big Show’s ailments was hilarious. “First, he got run over by an automobile. Then he was put through the announce table. Then he contracted typhoid. And now this.”
Honourable Mention: Alex Riley silent treatment.
Riley Shelton Benjamin’d himself to the top rope AND did Naomichi Marufuji’s running kick on the outside where he lands on the apron - and no one said a word. I’m not saying Riley is NEXT WORLD CHAMP BEST IN THE WORLD or anything, but I found it odd.
Dishonourable Honourable Mention: The crowd, Power Rangers.
Sometimes pro wrestling crowds are irritating. Take chanting “Power Ranger” at Sin Cara, for example. I SO BADLY want a cartoon or kids show of some kind to come out that can at least update that ****ing insult. Power Ranger? Power Ranger. REALLY. Has no other person dressed up in bright colours and fought people since the Might Morphin Mother****ing Power Rangers were on TV? If Sin Cara really was a Power Ranger, sparks would fly out of his chest whenever he ****ed up in the ring. SO THERE.
Shawn Michaels is the real Power Ranger anyway.