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PLANET JAKEIAK
Hello, my friend, we meet again. It's been a while, where should we begin?
I know! Let's check the news.
PPV:
I was really a big fan of the show up until Austin's match. And boy does it
pain me to designate "Austin's match" as where it went downhill, but good
lord a mercy. Austin is in a brutal PPV slump. And Ric Flair... how can so
great a wrestler be such a shitty referee? MOVE your ARM when you count so
that people can SEE you counting! Come ON.
And Hulk winning the title I just can't get into. He's just so... old. I
can see why they put him into the title match, but giving him the belt
didn't need to be done. And what really tweaks my melon is that I had most
of Judgment Day already planned out based on Triple H keeping the
belt.
Undertaker won the #1 contender spot, he gets the shot at HHH that he was
supposed to get at Backlash. Jericho cost Hogan the match in my fantasy
world, but it's not time for a Jericho/Hogan singles match. Because after
two straight PPV losses you really do need Hogan to win a match, but Jericho
isn't the opponent for that. So instead you do Hogan/Edge vs.
Angle/Jericho, which gives Edge the big match "rub", keeps Jericho and Angle
in the Smackdown top-card, and puts Hogan in a match that will be good when
he's not in it. The only problem with my card was that I really had nothing
for Austin to do.
Now it looks like Hogan/Taker as of right now which I really hope doesn't
stick. Dave Meltzer speculated that HHH and Jericho would be added for a
4-way, which should help a little. And Austin looks to be going after the
nWo again, maybe in a tag match with Bradshaw or something. I don't know
that a HHH/Taker and Hogan/Edge vs. Angle/Jericho card really beats a 4-way
title match and an Austin/Bradshaw vs. nWo card, but dammit the other card I
could see coming and I would have liked it better because of that.
RAW:
I like the situation with Austin and Flair because it seems to be building
and not rushing into anything. And Flair putting Show as Austin's partner,
only for Show to turn on him, adds a whole new wrinkle to the situation.
And I like that Big Show joined because the nWo could use a big guy to make
them more... tough, I guess. Scott Hall as the biggest and baddest dude
doesn't really strike fear into my heart.
When I first heard of Nash's injury I thought "they could put the Big Show
in there", cause he's big and he's got nWo cred and all that. But then it
was said that Nash would only be out a month or two and I figured "why
bother". Cause I don't think I'd enjoy Nash being back in a month and the
nWo having two giants, or god forbid Nash and Show having another feud about
who the real Big Man is. But maybe Nash will be out longer, I
dunno.
So I like the story but I'm just not excited about the matches it will lead
to. We've been spoiled the past few years with great main event guys, so
that even when the storylines weren't as good the matches were still top
notch. And now we've got Austin in a slump, HHH is out there with his
repaired quad and his broken kneecap and whatnot, and Hogan... just being
Hogan. It's a steep drop-off from what we're used to.
You know what really sucked, though, is that I was hoping for Scott Hall to
do his always classic "DUR DUR DUR I'M A BIG DUMB GIANT" walk to mock Big
Show, but now that's probably not going to happen. But I guess I've got
something to look forward to once they split.
HHH showing up to beat on Taker I really liked. Hunter showed some FIRE,
boy did he. But the true highlight was Taker, down on the ground and
bloody, saying to the cops "you better get him outta here before I get up!"
How awesome is that man, I ask you? It's a tough call between that and half
of what Booker T said during his movie review with Goldust for the coveted
line of the night honors. I think a tag team with Goldust is a criminal
misuse of Booker, who I think could and should and hopefully will be a top
card guy on Raw, but he's just so good at what he's doing that I don't know
what to do.
One thing I didn't enjoy much was Hogan's promo. When the Undertaker was
talking earlier in the show I thought I heard some boos when he mentioned
Hogan, but the crowd seemed to have nothing but love for him when he came
out. I liked Hogan's interview on Smackdown last week, with the "can I
possibly do this" type vibe followed by Jericho calling him "grandpa", sort
of letting us know that Hulk is in on the fact that he's an old man who's
gotten lucky with this final run on top. But his Raw speech was like
something from 1989, building to Hulk vs. the Evil Menace at the next big
show, and had far less of the "he's in on it" sort of feel. That concerns
me.
STUFF EVERYONE SEZ:
Hey, the Rock is a movie star! The Scorpion King was the #1 movie at the
box office this weekend, doing over $36 million. It's the largest April
opening weekend for a movie ever, beating out The Matrix by a pretty good
amount. Meanwhile, the movie "Helldorado" that Rock will film later this
year is now slated to co-star Stifler from the American Pie movies. That
concerns me, too.
Old-time wrestling legend Wahoo McDaniel died this past week. And just
tonight I read that old-time porno legend Linda Lovelace from "Deep Throat"
died in a car wreck this weekend, AND legendary People's Court bailiff Rusty
has died, too. If you can think of a punchline to somehow connect these
three people, you're a better man than I.
Wait, I might have one. Speaking of wrestling, porno, and people who've
spent a lot of time around jails... Tammy Sytch is back in the news! One
week after saying she had the perfect plan to get back into the WWF, there
are stories floating around that Tammy is taking the next logical step on
the path back to stardom: having sex on camera for money. In 1997 this news
would have caused my head to explode, but now I find myself just morbidly
curious about what it'll look like. What a crazy world.
In an effort to confuse and perplex me, the WWF announced that SummerSlam
2002 will be at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. For god sakes, WHY?
Nassau routinely has the deadest crowds of anywhere the WWF goes to, and
they're getting a PPV? And a major one to boot? Does anyone reading attend
Nassau Coliseum shows? Do the crowds just come across poorly on TV? Are
they actually loud and boisterous and undeserving of their bad rap?
Tough Enough 2, with it's Jackie & Pete love scandal, did it's highest
rating of the season this past week with a 2.1. I dunno if you can really
put that on the angle they were running, since the ratings have been growing
by a tenth or two the past few weeks. But I guess we'll find out if the
direction of the show suddenly shifts.
In other ratings news, for the first time The Osbournes has passed Raw as
the highest rated show on cable, just squeaking by with a lead of one-tenth
of a ratings point. This is where the WWF's clever language helps them, as
I think they've always touted Raw as the highest rated "regular series" on
cable and the "we'll do 10 episodes and then nothing for a year" type shows
like it seems The Osbournes will be if they have another season (or like The
Sopranos or Oz) don't count as a "regular series" since they aren't on more
often than not.
Kane's bicep injury is pretty serious and he'll be out of action for
around 4 months. The neck injury Lita got while filming Dark Angel is also
fairly serious, as she apparently has cracked her vertebrae in a few
different places. She may actually need Austin/Benoit/Rhyno style neck
surgery. That is a shame.
STUFF NOBODY SEZ:
My most sincere apologies if someone has reported this, but I can't recall
seeing it on any big sites.
Rock's last SNL episode did just shy of 10 million viewers. It was the
highest rated show of the season except the first episode just a few weeks
after the terrorist attacks. For comparison, this past week's SNL with Alec
Baldwin did something like 6 million viewers.
STUFF WADE SEZ:
Very little! This past week's Torch was fairly void of interesting news.
We'll try again next week.
STUFF DAVE SEZ:
Also very little! In fact, I overheard two noted Observer subscribers
bemoaning the lack of content in the past few issues. Quite the shame, that
is.
CLOSING OF THE WEEK:
That's all, folks!
Seadawg
[slash] wrestling
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