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

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Photo - WWE.com, Edit - F Yeah WWE Wrestling

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.

07/04/11 RAW REVIEW: JOHN CENA, AMERICAN MALE

This review is also posted at Fair To Flair, a new pro wrestling website that focuses on writing and editing and never has any tyops at all. I'm a regular contributor at FTF (mainly for Raw reviews, like this one, which I will get to after plugging everyone I know on the Internet).

With me are co-founders Jason Mann of Wrestlespective, K. Sawyer Paul of Footnotes of Wrestling, as well as Razor of Kick-Out!! Wrestling and my blogging D-Bro Brown TH of The Wrestling Blog. Give Fair To Flair a read, and I specifically suggest checking out the first-ever Fair To Flair Quarterly, an actual book that you can touch and read in the real world out there, or if you prefer melting your balls with your laptop for 14 hours a day like I do, it's also available in several digital formats!

Now, onto my review of the July 4th edition of Monday Night Raw, a show celebrating America and butt humour (mostly butt humour).

MONDAY NIGHT RAW 07/04/11

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Photo - WWE.com

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

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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.

02/25/11 SMACKDOWN REVIEW: NO RUMBLE! NO CHAMBER!

Cody Rhodes was a quote machine on Friday. I'm pretty sure whenever I'm upset about something from now on, I'm going to exclaim "NO RUMBLE NO CHAMBER!" and then kick the ropes and do a back bump.

Here are my thoughts from this past Friday's SmackDown. You can find these pretty much exact same words over at Fair To Flair, where you can also find the inaugural Fair To Flair Show, which features me and the rest of the FTF guys (Jason Mann of Wrestlespective, Razor of Kick-Out!! and K. Sawyer Paul of Footnotes of Wrestling) talking about what we want out of the new site, what offends you in pro wrestling, WrestleMania XXVII, and a lot more, including the words "boobies" and "dink" as being said by me, burned into the Internet forever.

SMACKDOWN 02/25/11

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Photo - WWE.com

THE FATHER/SON SET-UP

Don't you love seeing a father and son bonding over a Rey Mysterio beatdown? I know I do! There's too many things I liked about this to mention BUT HERE I GO ANYWAY:

- Dusty's forehead looking like a quilt after decades of blading.

- Cody Rhodes looking like Horace Grant with his protective mask.

- Dusty calling his son by his full name.

- Cody saying "… everyone is staring at me."

ALL AMAZING. And then there's the attack itself, which went on way longer than I expected. Cody beat the crap out of Rey Mysterio to the point where he may need surgery five times on his left knee. Rubbing his face on the grate was good. Chucking him into the digital mirror was great. Unmasking him and kicking him in his BARE FACE was awesome. This is my favourite angle on SmackDown right now, with the Kelly Kelly/Drew McIntyre "will they won't they" relationship as a close second.

VICKIE GUERRERO NEEDS YOUR HELP

When I watched Edge raise the roof and Teddy Long do his Tom Cruise dance and everyone laugh and point at Vickie Guerrero for being fired, I tried to picture how I'd feel if I was watching this as a 12-year old, and I'm pretty sure I'd be doing a jig around my living room (until my dad saw me, which at that point I'd change the channel and talk about hockey). Vickie begging everyone for help and just getting laughed at was awesome. I hope she comes back somehow. Maybe not as an authority figure of some kind, because that's pretty much run it's course. But if she could come back and make Kelly Kelly cry again, I'd be up for that.

BIG SHOW… ANGRYYYY

My favourite kind of Big Show: angry babyface who chucks jobbers around like one of those pet monkeys who escaped it's owner and ripped the neighbours' hands and faces off. He also gets a plus for wearing the kind of jacket that every dad in my hometown wears. And the Pam Beasley scream he let out wasn't so bad either. Either way, I prefer my Big Show mad and dominating as opposed to goofy or heel and slow.

Honourable Mention: Wrestling. I wasn't glued to the action or anything, but it was all mostly pretty fun. Kane and Rey had a good opener that led to the angle of the night, Swagger and Kofi had a short, but solid match, and Vickie Guerrero got speared by Kelly Kelly. Kelly Kelly also kicked her match off with a Kenny Omega-like step dance. I've talked a lot about Kelly Kelly. Next time I'll talk this much about Kevin Kelly.

SMACKDOWN 02/25/11

DISLIKED

Photo - WWE.com

NARRATIVE OF CONVENIENCE

The WWE love to change the rules to fit whatever finish they've concocted up. And I, being the nerd that I am, am going to whine about it on the internet.

Fellow Fair To Flair contributor K. Sawyer Paul likes to call this the "Narrative of Convenience." Let me explain: Barrett and Show are on the outside and the count is around seven. Barrett slides back in the ring, halfway under the bottom rope, until Show grabs his leg and pulls him back out. Normally, that would break the count. But this time, Big Show just slid back in the ring and won by countout a second later. It's weird that they could've done this any number of ways without ignoring rules that have been in place for fucking ever (citation needed), and I'm left writing a paragraph about it like a sweaty dork.

WADE BARRETT'S PUNCHES

For a guy who's gimmick is a "bare-knuckle brawler," Barrett's punches look like the front crawl or something. They're really big and lumbering and make me not think he could actually win a "bare-knuckle brawl." Maybe a Brawl For All.

LAST MINUTE DEL RIO APPEARANCE

I wonder if this feud will ever become more than what it is right now. As it stands, I feel like I've seen the same clip a few weeks in a row, with Del Rio attacking Edge and slapping on the armbar. That's cool and all, and I love simple feuds where a guy just straight-up wants something another guy has, whether it's a title, a briefcase or Terri Runnels as your personal slave. But part of me feels like this could get a little more heat behind it. Having Del Rio attack Edge just before the credits roll, after not appearing on the entire show before that, doesn't seem like the best way.

Honourable Mention: I'm still mad about Tough Enough, stop reminding me that I'll be seeing Miss USA instead of Austin Aries and Joey Ryan.

Hey WWE, you might want to stock up on guys like Aries and Ryan. These are the kind of guys who have the same kind of dedication, talent and experience as guys like Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker, and SO ON do, who are all dropping like flies. But no. You went with Rima Fakih. Thanks for that one.

And while I'm at it, I sure wish SmackDown would create some of it's own "can't miss" awesome moments like The Rock calling John Cena a kind of cereal or Triple H politely asking The Undertaker to suck him, instead of just replaying ones that happen on Raw for me to see. I'm definitely not taking away how sweet both of those moments were, and I completely understand why they get replayed on all the other shows… but let's get Del Rio doing something besides working Edge's arm for a series of weeks, and I'll be happy.