OH BABY, I like it RAW! WWE's Lakers: Straight up Ballin'!

Matt and Adam take the brand extension very seriously. They each only identify with one brand and actively follow it. Matt bleeds Raw red and Adam has Smackdown blue coursing through his veins. Being soldiers in the ongoing war for brand supremacy has charged both of them up enough to provide handy recaps of the previous week's show. That way, no new viewers will feel lost. Thus, every Monday and Friday, we here at LOL, Wresslin' will offer you a refresher. Hey, it's the least we can do.

For a theme song to accompany this post, please press play and enjoy...



Hi gang. You may have noticed a little something different in that intro. Matt has a fever, so he graciously asked me to slam his favorite TV show for him today. Who knows how this will go? My guess? Poorly. I mean, look at how much punctuation is in the title alone!

Anyway, as we have been reporting for the last few weeks, last Monday's Raw was the culmination of the "Denver Debacle." I'm not going to recount it. Still, in the interest of padding out this post, here's a LOL of Vince and Denver Nuggets owner, E. Stan Kroenke.

"Your first name rhymes with two things that can describe Matt Striker!"

Kelly Kelly had a Divas title match for some reason. And actually won the match! But by disqualification, which means she doesn't get the title (boo!). You see, what had happened was Maryse threw K Squared into the announce table (it miraculously didn't break) and Double K got counted out. For some reason, that got Maryse DQ'd.

Above: Two cases of history as a table does not break and a DQ finish makes no sense

Ric Flair decided to hang out with the memories a while longer and got his nose rubbed in that doody by Randy Orton.

"Stop it! When will you learn to leave the memories alone?! When?!"

There was supposedly a very good match on the show too. Kofi Kingston defeated William Regal and Matt Hardy in a triple threat match (so much more threat!) to become the #1 contender for the United States Championship. I think that put him at 26th in the official WWE rankings. Anyway, Regal was slow, Matt had a cast, Kofi jumped a lot. You get the gist.

It's the dance senstaion that's sweepin' the nation

Winning the US title is kind of like this

Ah, time now for some genius booking from the #1 brand. In case you didn't know, there's been this Santina Marella character running around lately. She's not much of a looker, but she can sure wrestle with the Divas well. She won the Miss Wrestlemania battle royal, despite never being shown on television before then. Still, she lost her crown last week to Raw GM Vickie Guerrero, and she wants it back. Santina is also the twin sister of two time Intercontinental champion, Santino Marella. So the logical next step is to put Santino (and a lady partner) in a mixed tag against Vickie's nephew Chavo and Santino's ex girlfriend.

And of course, there's a stipulation attached. Winner of the match gets to choose the stipulation for the Santina/Vickie rematch at the next PPV. Because evil heels in positions of authority always give their opponents opportunities to make their lives easier.

Anyway, Santino copped a few feels on Mickie James and won the match. He decided to choose for his sister the stipulation (because that also makes sense).


It'll be a Hog Pen match, last seen when HHH fought Henry Godwin.


One of the few things I miss from Smackdown that's now on Raw is The Brian Kendrick. Seriously. I love the guys work, love his gimmick, think he's great on the mic. It makes me sad to see him on Raw where he's completely lost in the shuffle. So it seems the logical step is for him to find a tag partner and challenge for the Unified Tag Belts (which are barely more useful then the European championship). But first he needs to get past these challenges:

Talk about a rock and a hard place!

Luckily for TBK, he found a suitable partner! Functional retard Festus! And he appealed to the LA fans by wearing a Clippers jersey.

More history, as this is the first case of someone willingly wearing a Clippers jersey.

So yea, basically, this happened:

"Hey Dustin, that pin isn't gay enough"

Really? Really? Goldust wins? How come every time I watch Raw Goldust wins? He never wins! My life is the worst.

Anyway, onto the main event. A ten man tag where everyone wears uniforms and came out to a basketball type intro. Here are the bad guy Nuggets.

(l-r): Boring, fatso, underrated, overrated, the worst

And the good guy Lakers.

Aww, The Animal thinks he's people.

Now, I know there's an unfamiliar face in there. I'll get to that in a second. But before I do, seriously. If this were a basketball game, which team would you want? The one with the fast lean guys and the 7 footer in the middle, or the one with two guys too jacked to move, an injury prone dude, and a 48 year old fat guy (seriously, what's Lawler doing in this match anyway? Any explanation?)

Well, none of that matters, because Mr. Ken Kennedy came back from a long injury. This was his first match back. It was exciting. I mean, how did he get his own Lakers' jersey personalized so quickly without ruining the surprise? I guess it's all for naught, because he didn't last too long. He almost hurt Orton with a bad suplex, and then injured his wrist on an RKO. WWE wishes him the best in all his future endeavors.

...Kennedy....

But hey, let's celebrate good times! The Lakers won the match!

If not the actual game that night, but they ended up winning the series, so I guess it all worked out for Vince in the end. Or did it???

There, that wasn't so bad. I mean, sure there's a PPV this Sunday, but they don't need to promote that! Much better to stroke Vince's ego! Tonight will be different, I'm sure. 9/8c, USA Network!

Here we go again

Obviously last night was Vince McMahon's giant "F you" to the NBA and more specifically, the Denver Nuggets and their management. Not to get all spoilery for next weeks "OH BABY I LIKE IT RAW!", but let's just say it was glorious. Rather then just make dick jokes and hire kinda-look-a-likes, Vince decided to hit 'em where it hurts: their wallets. Yes, he announced the formation of a brand new basketball league to go head to head with NBA, aptly named the XBA! We were lucky enough to do some investigative reporting (digging through Shane's garbage) and find out some of the particulars of the new basketball initiative.

1) Twenty teams with ten per conference, five per division. The playoffs will consist of top four seeds in each conference playing a best of five series, with the finals being best of seven. Cities already vying for XBA franchises include Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Fort Lauderdale, Toledo, Birmingham, and oddly enough, Denver (who will be known as the "Thuggets".)

2) MyNetwork TV has agreed to forgo its plans of magic awards and Law & Order reruns to broadcast the "XBA Game of the Week" every Wednesday night at 9:25 PM. This will be followed by the Shelton Benjamin hosted post game show "Don't Try and Stop the Funk on a Particularly Nasty Dunk."

3) Halftime shows will consist of cheerleaders acting dumb around a male cheerleader in drag, A Randy Orton promo that will only be two sentences long, repeated attempts at dunking by Hornswaggle, and HHH fucking a corpse.

4) All teams will have black as their main color..because it's extreme.

5) Michael Cole and Matt Striker will call most games. WWE and XBA officials will advise watching games on "Mute." This is all a ploy to boost attendance.

6) Pops Mensah-Bonsu will be league MVP. This has been decided.



7) Underutilized players will be cut and eventually play for TNABA. It is there that they will learn that they didn't play due to "politics", but because they do, in fact, suck.

The XBA kicks off this summer, so be sure to catch it! What are you going to do? Watch the WNBA?

The NBA playoffs are not important

On more than one occasion, we here at LOL, Wresslin' have provided our opinion on professional wrestling in the mainstream. Usually, the mainstream media just laughs off our dumb, redneck entertainment and only likes talking about it when they get to put it down. This time is no exception.

A story about WWE has been making the rounds through ESPN, The Associated Press, and many mainstream sports blogs. To summarize, World Wrestling Entertainment is scheduled to hold next Monday's Raw live from the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. That also happens to be the same night as game four of the NBA Western Conference Finals. So, what's the big whoop, right? The Denver Nuggets are historically terrible and would never make it to the third round, thus the building should be open for Memorial Day, right? Right?


Yes, the arena is double booked. Naturally, many are thinking that the "little ole 'rasslin show" (our quotes) should stand back and let the big, bad NBA have their scheduled night. That somehow moving the NBA game back a day would set a precedent and we should only let the more important event take place.

Here's the thing though. The NBA playoffs aren't important.

Nor is Monday Night Raw. Both are forms of entertainment which are enjoyed by a section of the populace who likes that kind of action. Both are shows and spectacles that draw high cable ratings and promote individual personalities. Now there is the argument that the NBA is an undetermined event and every day is vital in the playoffs, whereas WWE can tape whatever stories they want to get across at a later day. That it's just a show and shows can be moved. But guess what, there is already a precedent from a few weeks ago in favor of WWE!

Playoff games are usually played every other day. Especially in the case of travel days. The thought is that the games are so intense that going back-to-back is just too rough on the body (because you know (tm), wrestlers just jump on a trampoline four straight days a week all year). So imagine the conundrum that the NHL had two weeks ago when the date of a theoretical game six in the Pittsburgh/Washington series would have fallen on the same date as a Yanni concert booked at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh. What was the solution? Games 4 and 5 would be played on back to back days, even with the travel involved. Of course, where was the outcry against this?

There's an easy answer to why these things are happening. WWE and Yanni booked the buildings. Well in advance. They sold tickets, promoted the shows, and SIGNED CONTRACTS GUARANTEEING THE DATES. We bolded that because the situation really should be that black and white. However, for WWE it gets even deeper then that. They are responsible to produce a two hour television show for the USA Network. The merits of the importance if Raw can be debated all night, but no one can deny that USA is a major media player with some significant pull (we acknowledge that the the converse for ESPN can also be argued). Still, we've been postulating about this for too long now. Let's see what the publicly traded WWE has to say.

WWE VS. NBA
May 18, 2009

STAMFORD, Conn., May 18, 2009 – World Wrestling Entertainment®’s live, internationally televised broadcast, WWE Monday Night RAW®, (USA Network, 9:00 PM ET) to take place at the Pepsi Center in Denver next Monday, May 25th is in jeopardy of being cancelled (sic) by the Denver Nuggets. The WWE and Denver Nuggets are currently at an impasse in resolving a scheduling debacle by the team and the Pepsi Center.

A sell-out crowd is expected to attend the WWE show at the same time the Denver Nuggets are slated to square off against the Los Angeles Lakers for Game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Finals. WWE has held the May 25th date with the Pepsi Center since August 15, 2008.

“Even though the Denver Nuggets had a strong team this year and were projected to make the playoffs, obviously Nuggets and Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke did not have enough faith in his own team to hold the May 25th date for a potential playoff game,” said WWE Chairman Vince McMahon.

Ok Vince, we're with you. You're completely in the right, the building should be yours for the night. But, DID YOU HAVE TO CUT A PROMO ON THE DENVER NUGGETS? REALLY? REALLY? Is that really the best way to get across how monumentally huge the company is? Is that how you make your case that Monday Night Raw is just as important as anything else on TV that night? By challenging Stan Kroenke to a cage match and giving him a cheap Kobe jersey you bought at Sports Authority that day? REALLY?

So what do we think is going to happen in the end? The game will just be pushed back to 'Til Tuesday (voices carry!). Even if the contract was signed in April, that's just a formality in case the building collapses. It was booked back in August. If there is not an out clause by Kroenke we don't see how they can do this. Sure, they might just settle with WWE on the missed date, but Lord knows they won't want to take on the USA Network. So the easiest solution is to just play the basketball game the next day.

Still, bet on there being an opening skit of John Cena being locked out of the building and then beating up some nerdy looking gatekeeper named "Stan" because he snottily tells Mr. Cena he's not allowed in the building that night. It's about the level of class and maturity we'd expect from WWE.