Friday, July 15, 2011

07/11/11 RAW REVIEW: CM PUNK = VOICE OF THE VOICELESS (ICE CREAM BARS HAVE NO VOICE)

This review is also posted at Fair To Flair, a new pro wrestling website with essays and articles and podcasts and an actual book (think Internet you can touch!) that we release four times a year, which we call the Fair To Flair Quarterly. You can purchase the first Quarterly here (in both book and digital book formats), and listen to a podcast detailing the upcoming second Quarterly here.

I'm a regular contributor at FTF (mainly for Raw reviews, like this one) along with co-founders Jason Mann of Wrestlespective, K. Sawyer Paul of Footnotes of Wrestling, as well as Razor of Kick-Out!! Wrestling and my blogging Dick Bro-go TH of The Wrestling Blog.

Now, hit my music from atop a mountain with that Brahma Bull witchcraft.

MONDAY NIGHT RAW 07/11/11
LIKED...

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.


It looks like they’re having bad dreams in bed together.

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