Wrestlemania is 6 days away and I am PUMPED! Are you PUMPED? 'Cause I'm PUMPED!

Spewin' On RAW

RVD and The Hardyz (withOUT Lita, so they're DOOMED) vs. The Dudleyz (withOUT Stacy, so THEY'RE doomed too!) and William Regal - we're told there's no women because there's a HUGE Diva match later. We also get the confirmation for the 4-Corners match for 'Mania between the Hardyz, Dudleyz, the APA, and Billy/Chuck. Hey, a table! It's been awhile! And OW, that was a nasty kick to the face by Regal on Jeff. And RVD 5-stars Regal for the win, making Regal look even MORE pathetic than he already does, and causing me to fear that Regal will win at WM with the Power Of The Gimmick That Won't Die.

Emergency Board Meeting!! Oh MY!! How'd they get the camera in there? There's Vince! There's Flair! There's the board of directors! Get your ass to Dairy Queen, folks, 'cause it's time for a SPLIT! I wonder if Vince is ALWAYS this dramatic in board meetings? It'd probably be effective. Tonight, the board must choose which direction is going to go in - Flair's, or Vince's! I smell a SPLIT decision! Vince is looking for Absolute Power - well Vince, you can get it at any Blockbuster Video store - Clint might be gettin' old, but it's still a good movie. Or was it? I guess you could say I'm SPLIT on it.

Can somebody explain this LAME Molson Canadian ad to me which does nothing but make fun of the hygiene of American women? How am I supposed to explain this to the guys when they arrive at Hotel BrewGuy for 'Mania? I know, I'll BREAK THE TV

Kurt Angle SPEAKS! - CANADIAN FLAG IN THE AUDIENCE CANADIAN FLAG CANADIAN CANADA CANADA hey, it took Kurt about 4 seconds to insult the city of Detroit. Then, he whines about not getting his title shot, and how Kane cost him the shot and how'd you like that beatdown and blah blah blah. Kurt says the whole child-burning thing will feel like a paper cut! Angle plays the "stop saying 'You Suck'!" card (beautifully, I might add) and we're joined by Booker T? He's tired of Angle calling the fans stupid - 'cause these people in the arena are BEYOND stupid! Kurt saying "homie" = GOLD. Meanwhile, here's Edge (and his hair). Edge says Booker is officially "The Stupidest Man In The Company" and Booker goess all Weakest Link on his ass! Brilliant!! But Edge shows footage of Booker being super-dumb on Weakest Link in response! IT'S THE WEAKEST LINK SHAMPOO FEUD~! RATINGS~! Enough of this tomfoolery, Edge challenges Booker for 'Mania, now can you dig THAT, sucka? Edge says Angle's not Red, White and Blue, just extreeeeemely white. RACISM~! Angle's all about SOUL (he says)! ANGLE-ROONI~! Even Booker had to laugh at that, while Edge re-names it th Dork-a-rooni. Funny stuff and all, but it's time to get to the point, guys! Ahhh, FINALLY Angle gets around to making a tag-match between Booker/Angle vs. Edge and whoever he wants (not Kane - he ain't here). I think it'll be The Big SPLIT - I mean, Show.

Beauty And The Beast - Hey, it's Lucy! AND SHE'S IN ONE PIECE~!!!! Steph talks trash to the dog 'cause it can't talk back. Bite her Lucy! HHH talks baby-like to his dog, making me feel better because that's how I talk to MY dogs. Oops, Steph went to court and Lucy's hers and blah blah fuckin' blah. Lucy's SNORING~!!!! OHHHH, THE IRONY~!! "She does stink, doesn't she Lucy?" Steph whine whine bitch bitch whine and Lucy will be introduced to the Undisputed Champion who hates dogs even more than she does. Star Of This Vignette: Lucy! Awwwwwwwwwwlookatdapupppyyyyyyyyyshe'ssooooocuuuuuuuute

Rikishi vs. TEST We see how Test laid the WHITBY BOOT OF DEATH on Rikishi on Heat because HE CAN and HE'S GOD and you know the rest. Pleasepleasepleaseplease, give Test a 'Mania match. Rikishi EARTHQUAKES Test! THAT'S GIMMICK INFRINGEMENT~!! CALL JOHN TENTA~! Before the Stinkface, Mr. Perfect is out to interfere long enough for Test to land the WHITBY BOOT OF DEATH AWWWWW YEAH TEST WINS TEST WINS!!! But no 'Mania match announcement?? By the way, they've changed Test's music AGAIN, just in time for them to change it again to the MEGA-AWESOME new version that's on the new WWF CD.

Steph and Jericho smell something They talk and stuff while Lucy does us a favor and shits all over this segment. Thanks Lucy! Now, can we PLEASE have a little Jericho/HHH interaction? I mean, they're ONLY in the MAIN EVENT, it's not like it's IMPORTANT that they BUILD UP the ACTUAL MATCH instead of watching STEPH WHINE WAIL BITCH MOAN COMPLAIN AND TAKE UP VALUABLE SCREEN TIME WHICH TEST COULD BE USING, is it?!? AWWWW, DON'T ZOOM IN ON THE CRAP, GEEEEEEEEEZ

Jericho walks Lucy - and ties Lucy to the Limo door. That limo's gonna LEAVE and they're gonna KILL THE DOG!

DDP and Christian work on smiling Christian's fake smile RULES. Christian calling Gunn "Precious", RULES. Christian RULES. Is he officially a face now?

The Board Meeting Continues - we see footage of Flair rushing Taker and clocking the fan on SmackDown and being arrested. The board seems SPLIT about it.

Goldust vs. Al Snow for the Hardcore Championship - BRAINBUSTER ON THE TRASH CAN and IT'S OVA~! Well THAT was short. Nice seeing Al with a belt again - assuming he keeps it

Jericho gets in the limo to get air freshener and Lucy's still tied to the limo!!! I TOLD YA!!! Nice job to not show the dog. OH MY GOD, THEY RAN OVER LUCY, gosh THAT wasn't predictable AT ALL, and WHAT A WAY TO BUILD UP THE MAIN EVENT AT WRESTLEMANIA~!! And a LOVELY touch to have the taped dog-whimpering go for the WHOLE REST OF THE SEGMENT. YIKES. Keee-rist in a cartoon, I must be getting old or something, 'cause I'm all, like, BITCHY tonight. Probably because I'm actually attending WrestleMania and damnit, I want my $200 worth! Is that so much to ask? Annnnyway, I'm rambling.

Triple H finds Lucy STILL UNDER THE CAR - and CHRIST, she's STILL WHIMPERING!! C'mon HHH, LIFT THE CAR UP! Aren't you supposed to get super-human strength in times of great peril?! Sigh. How's that quote go? These are the times that try men's souls?

Kurt A and Booker T vs. Edge and ? - Hey, guess what? His partner is The Big Show! I am SMART, SMART, S-M-R-T! What's The Big Show gonna be doing for WrestleMania? Edge with the cross-body from Show's shoulders! That was cool. I feel better. Edge needs to name that face-buster type move of his. I just realized we haven't seen the nWo at all yet tonight. Took me loong enough, eh? Double-suplex by Show was very cool. And Booker NAILED Show with the side kick! ANGLE SLAM ON SHOW! Nice! There's the Anglelock, and Show taps! I take a deep breath and feel a better. Positive energy, positive energy.....

Steph's all panicked and stuff and Jericho's got a plan and that's about it. Jericho and H are so above this crap. It's sad, really.

Divas Dance at WWF NY - is that Sharmell? What happened to her interviewing career? I love Terri.

Billy (with Chuck) vs. Christian (with DDP) - Why isn't Christian wrestling at WrestleMania yet? How about that weak-ass "bang" pyro? DDP takes commentary! That was a heckuva tirl-a-whirl slam by Gunn. Chrstian throws a tantrum, but DDP calms him down. Christian feels better. There's a Famouser, but DDP lands a Diamond Cutter! And Christian WINS! Christian WINS! DDP is HAPPY! Christian is VERY HAPPY! It's a HAPPY TANTRUM!!!!!!! BUT CHRISTIAN TURNS ON DDP YEEEEAHHH~!! AWESOME!! Sign Christian and DDP for WrestleMania, I bet! Colour me MUCH happier!

More Board Meeting Stuff - Vince continues to try and make Flair look bad, who hasn't said a word all night. On a side note, those looks like VERY comfy chairs. Shouldn't Flair get a chance to respond? "One person,and one person alone, is capable of running this company.....and his name is Eric Bischoff!" Hee hee, just making sure you're paying attention. Linda wants to adjourn to a "private area" with all of the board members? Linda, you're married!

BREAKING NEWS Triple Threat Match for the Women's Belt with Lita, Trish, and Jazz at 'Mania!! Wheeeeeeeee!

Lita and Trish vs. Jazz and Stacy We're told Lucy has a broken leg. THANK GOD SHE'S ALIVE I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR WORD ALL NIGHT oh, there's wrestling on. This just in - Stacy's legs go all the way up to her ass. Look at Trish dish the forearms!!! Beauty! Trish barely touches Lita and she falls and gets pinned and ouch, that could've been better.

TRIPLE H IS BACK AND HE'S MAAAAD! DON'T-uh....RUN OVER-uh.....MY DOG-uh!! He rips up some paper and hears Steph's music and races off!

Steph SPEAKS! RUN! Steph apologizes profusely but a pissed-off Game comes running and catches her! Where's Jericho? Hey look, STEPH'S ASS! Quick, what was the e-mail of the dude who was paying like $500 for a butt shot? Ahhh, who am I kidding - I'm sure CRZ beat me to it. ;) PEDIGREE coming and......a censoring?! Oh, Jericho hit him in the leg with a sledgehammer!!! Now THAT's more like it!!! ANd he hit him AGAIN! And it's CENSORED AGAIN! THE CRTC SUCKS! But Jericho RULES! Now hit STEPH with the hammer! I guess that'd be asking too much. HHH: "I think I tore my quad again!" Refs help HHH out, and I'm a lot happier than I was earlier. Assuming H is just selling, of course. I don't even wanna THINK that he's injured 6 days before 'Mania. Great job, but it's FAR too obvious that Steph's gonna eat Pedigree at 'Mania. But that's not a bad thing, etc. etc.

During The Break - JERICHO CHOP-BLOCKS HHH as he's being helped up the ramp!! YES!!! YES!!! Lookit H sell like a king! Beautiful! It's ABOUT DAMN TIME we got a good Jericho/HHH segment. Hey, better late than never!

The Board Re-Convenes - A decision has been reached, but Linda wants to ask Rick one question. The question is, will Rick go ahead with the Undertaker match? Rick says yes, and Vince gets his vote of confidence. BUT, the board can review the decision after 'Mania. Now Rick FINALLY defends himself - a little late, Ric! Ric accepts the temporary suspension and will even the score with the Undertaker AT ANY COST. I don't know about you, but I'm more psyched for this match than any other (save Rock/Hogan).

Oh THERE'S the nWo! Hogan's excited! The nWo say "6 days" an awful lot! Nash wants this match to go down in history! Does that mean they might LOSE?! Nahhhhhhhhh

Rock/Austin vs. The nWo - Hey, y'know why they do the black and white entrance thing for the nWo? 'Cause it makes it look like WCW TV! I'm a GENIUS! JR says this is Hogan's first match in a WWF Ring in 8 years. Wow. Nash's first entrance into the ring looked better than I thought it would be, and here comes Hogan to a HUGE reaction from the crowd. Ugly Lou Thesz press taken by Nash. Look at Rock pace while Hogan's in the ring with Austin. I can't get over Hogan's bald spot. I'm working on it. Hall wants the Razor's Edge, but can't have it! HOT TAG! ROck lays it down but Nash nails him and tags in Hogan The Opportunist but there's a kip-up! But Nash punks out Rock from behind! Crowd going NUTS for Rock and Hogan in the ring together. BIG BOOT!! LEG DROP! 1-2-3!!! CROWD MEGA-POPS~!!! CRAZY~!!! And the nWo beat down Austin to boot! SCOTT HALL STUNNER! The nWo win, and FINALLY look DANGEROUS!! The match was ultra-sloppy, but I can forgive that - I just wish the Big Three got some more ring work in.

Overall - Well there was lots to like AND lots to hate on this show. Horrible Steph/dog vignettes, but a cool sledgehammer beat-down and a total-flashback nWo victory. You gots to take the good with the bad. I'll be very interested to see Michaelangelo's article, 'cause we got the REALLY good, REALLY bad, and REALLY ugly all in one show.

Act Now (Or Later), Operators Are Standing By

Poor Drop. He's had an up-and-down week. He very happy with his new theme music and says very kind things about yours truly, but he's very unhappy with the nWo storyline. And he's not alone. But then, a show like this comes along, which (in my humble opinion) helps the nWo look more dangerous than they have since their arrival (not "take over the WWF" dangerous, but bear with me, I'll get to that in a second). NOW what does the Dropsta do? This little connundrum put a question in my head: When do most people make make the decision to buy/not buy a PPV? The obvious answer seems to be after all shows pertaining to said PPV have been completed and a full judgement can be made, but if certain storylines or vignettes are particularly bad or aren't up to one's expectations, a potential customer could easily make a decision not to get the PPV well in advance, no matter how good the last couple of shows are. Now, perhaps WrestleMania isn't the best example, considering it's THE event of the year. But, excluding it and maybe the Royal Rumble, the rest of them can't lean too heavily on past shows.

Where this could REALLY get interesting is after the split, especially if they try to run two PPV's a month. NOW our wrestling PPV output has doubled, but so has the money we've gotta fork over to see it. If that's the case, one would think that storylines would have to be VERY compelling in order for Joe Fan to plunk down his $70 a month, and THAT means that waiting until a week before the event to effectively build-up the PPV will not help to sway those who are sitting on the fence.

..and about this "nWo taking over" thing...

...you know what the big problem is? My theory is simply that the WWF was a little TOO good at hyping the arrival of the nWo. It went on for about a week too long, and the immediate payoff wasn't enough for the fans. We were told the nWo would kill the WWF, and except for Hogan's promo at No Way Out, the whole "kill the WWF" thing has not been mentioned ONCE (to my recollection) by Vince or any other member of the nWo. Imagine for a second that Vince simply said that he was bringing in the nWo to destroy Austin (or Rock, or whoever), instead of destroy the WWF. Well, NOW, the hype is huge, but we're not expecting the nWo to destroy the company - just Austin. Imagine how much more effective that No Way Out beatdown would've been. Just a thought. In any case, my advice is to stop complaining that the nWo aren't destroying the company and move on, perhaps after sending a note to the WWF to remind them not to hype something which isn't going to happen - at least, in the near future.

Quick Pimp: ITVR Radio proudly welcomes The Stro on Tuesday, March 19th, and I'm nervous as hell about it, but it should be a lot of fun. Pop over to fancast.com Tuesday night at 10:30pm EST and listen in - don'cha dare miss it! And, don't forget that my WrestleMania recap will be one day late, but it'll be huuuge, so you'll get over it.

Final Thought: If Mr. Perfect and Test become a tag-team, their name should be A+.

BrewGuy
[slash] wrestling