We put the LOL in wrestling (if you add an "O" and another "L", we guess.)
Here you will be invited into the world of two working, college educated gentlemen who happen to love the world of professional wrestling, but love to ridicule things even more.
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...
Well, I'm back from my first annual late-January blogging break! Missed me? Of course you did. I'd say that was a stupid question, but we all know there's no such thing as a stupid question, unless you're the one asking.
Like this one: "Matt, are you going to provide a 10,000 word recap of the Raw happenings during the Royal Rumble pay-per-vew?" Yes, that is a stupid question, because I absolutely will not. We already did that during our special live blog/team-building experiment with fellow blogger (or bloggette?) Ray from Wrestlegasm. Consequently, I will not be giving you a blow by blow account of what happened. That's what YouTube and people who don't give a shit about copyrights are for.
However, a couple of important team squabbles went down that should be mentioned. First is DX. You see, both were in the 30-man Royal Rumble match, and both had aspirations of getting a Wrestlemania title shot. Triple H because, well, he's Triple H, and Shawn Michaels because that's the only way he thinks he can get a rematch with the Undertaker. A little backstage vignette showed us that there could be trouble if Trips and HBK were left unattended in the ring together, since they both made it clear they would be looking out for number one, just like every other tag team that's ever participated in the Rumble since the beginning of ever.
Fast forward to the match, and even though there are other people in the ring for him to fight, the Heart Break Kid went ahead and proved he was a man of his word.
Expect some smushing together of foreheads over this.
In our other Raw news, there was some speculation leading up to the WWE Title match as to whether Legacy would have Randy Orton's back when he went up against Sheamus. During the match, Cody tried to prove he's a team player by smacking the champ around. However, since the Code is severely lacking in ninja skills, he was spotted.
This is also your Cody Rhodes photoshop contest.
Of course, this led to a win for Sheamus by DQ. Randy wasn't happy with Cody, and he expressed his discontent with his fists. Henchmodel Teddy ran down to cool the situation with more yelling, and he got smacked around for his efforts as well. So it looks as if Legacy is more like History as of last night.
Alright, that's the stuff you need to know to be caught up for tonight at 9/8c on USA! Unless of course you're watching 24, in which case, GO JACK!
On Wednesdays, we here at LOL, Wresslin' like to really pull out the stops and offer up a double shot of righteously killer content. Why Wednesday? Well, we could impress you with market research, work habit studies, and human psychology tendencies to show you there's a scientific reason the middle of the week is the best time to bring your A-game. However, truth be told, we don't have any of that stuff and settled on Wednesday because that was the only day that didn't have any content scheduled.
So, here you have "Watch Wresslin' Wednesdays," the ORIGINAL wrestling-themed, YouTube video comedic co-commentary. Please feel free to suggest a better title, because we are woefully uncreative when it comes to naming stuff.
Better at naming stuff than us.
The idea of W.W.W. is we each send the other a video that is related to wrestling (a match, promo, interview, guest starring spot, etc.). The only restriction is that it cannot be user-created, so playing Triple H's theme song on the mandolin ain't going to fly here, pal. Neither of us know what kind of video we're going to get that day.
After viewing, we each write a response. This could be anything we choose: a straight commentary, a philosophical enlightenment, or classless ridicule. Just as we don't know what kind of video the other will select, neither do we know what the other will write or how they will write it. What you end up with is a mash-up of styles, which in our book equates to two-blogs-in-one, and we can take the rest of the day off.
Matt's video to Adam- Booker T plaing bingo at church and Austin returns
Adam's response...
Wrestlers in a bingo hall? What is this? ECW?!?! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOOLOLOLOZ!!!!shiftone!
Alright, alright. As much as I would love to punch out there, I should say at least something about what just occured on screen, which is more than I can say for them.
Have you ever been watching Raw and then a 9th-grade One Act Play practice broke out? Well, if you were watching Raw on January 21st last year, you could say "Yes" to that. I know, I know. It's easy to make fun of Cody Rhodes' acting ability. So much so that he's been dubbed "Community theater Cody" around the mark sites. I'm not going to do that. In fact, I'll say that he's the most convincing of the three on screen, if you exclude the WWE logo at the botom.
Better at acting than Cody Rhodes
This segment screams "Welcome to the WWE, newborn child! Here's how things work around here." I think the script was written by Wikipedia. Like I said, let's forget about Cody, because...well, because I kick him in the nuts enough here. Brian Kendrick, however, looks like he's auditioning to be the ringmaster for a one-time performance of the Barnum and Bailey's Circus at the Special Olympics.
"And now, a donkey dressed as an elephant, because you'll never know the difference!"
If there were a LOLie for "Overacting Where's It's Completely Unnecessary," it would go to The Brian Kendrick. As a matter of fact, why shouldn't there be? We completely made those up. So as of today, I am awarding Brian Kendrick a LOLie. Congratulations!! (I'll expect Adam's pick by the end of business today or he's kicked out of the blog.)
However, the real champion here is Bob Holly, making it the first time he's ever been the real champion of anything. Bob's role is the clueless old warrior, who doesn't care about these kids' Facespace or whatever and just wants to kick some ass, even if it's the ass of a friend. Holly is too stupid to know that, these days, acting "behind the times" is stupid.
Even that joke is five years too late.
Bob Holly also says, "Nobody's going to stop me from winning that Rumble." Well, my friend, you were the sixth person to be eliminated, and Umaga was the one to do it, so technically you are correct. A nobody stopped you from winning the Rumble.
Oh, and again Dailymotion.com, why credit TH3_GHOST for uploading this video?? You're crediting someone for creating a link on the internet?? We do that five times a week here, and you don't see us pattingourselveson the back about it.
We've talked previously in this space about the time that an arena in Denver was double-booked, with both a WWE show and an NBA playoff game happening at the same time. That issue was eventually worked out, with McMahon taking his boys to Los Angeles and having a nice little time in the public eye for about a week. And we, for the most part, agreed with him on that issue.
Now, however, we have another instance of WWE having to change their plans on account of the sports world. The annual Royal Rumble pay-per-view was scheduled for January 24th, 2010. Seeing as how it's the second most important show of the year (we suppose an argument could be made for SummerSlam, so maybe it's a 2-a and 2-b situation), it seems like nothing could really mess with that, right?
Apparently there's something called the NFL. We've heard of it.
Like this, but with an "N."
Within the NFL, there's these things called "conferences." Kind of like wrestling promotions, each with their owner players and their own champions. Those "conference champions" are decided during games called, interestingly enough, in things call "conference championship games." We hope you're still with us.
So these games fall this year on the same date planned for the Royal Rumble, which is to be held in the city of Atlanta. Doing a little research, we've discovered an NFL team by the name of the Atlanta Falcons. This situation is a little different than the previous sports-related dispute, in that:
1. WWE is not holding their show in the Falcons' stadium. 2. Atlanta isn't going to the conference finals.
The uniform of the Atlanta Falcons
Really, this thing was all about viewership, so WWE could maximize that key demographic that watches both football and professional wrestling: the 18-35 year-old, Dominos pizza-eating Busch light drinker who weighs at least 250 pounds. Vince didn't want to have to compete with two NFL games on the same night, and we understand that. However, we can't help but wonder about the stunts he would have pulled if that happened.
For instance, Vince could pitch a poorly-cast fake Roger Goodell the idea of a brand new football league. When the fake Goodell balks at the idea, Stone Cold Steve Austin comes down and stuns he and Vince both and then drinks a lot of beer.
There could be a tag match with the faces dressed up as the Atlanta Falcons and the heels as division rival Carolina Panthers. And then a team from the AFC could come in and beat them both.
And of course, there could be a dog collar match. It is Atlanta, after all.
So Vince, we beg you to reconsider. We know you loved all that time on ESPN, anyway.
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...
Last night was the Royal Rumble, so I won't recap last week's Raw since those story lines doesn't matter anymore! There is one thing you should know from a week ago though...VINCE McMAHON IS BACK!
That's right, Mr. McMahon has come back to his favorite show, Monday Night Raw, the flagship of all things entertainment. First order of business is to get Jericho his job back (we all knew that firing wouldn't stick). He apologized and everything's ok. Now Randy Orton comes out and starts demanding apologies from the McMahons. Well, that doesn't sit well with Vince, since I guess he's a face now, and he's just about to issue those famous words of his when Orton does the sensible thing and slaps him to the ground, then punts him in the head.
That's right, Vince can't last one night, nay ten minutes, without ending up on a stretcher. I guess we'll find out what happened to him tonight, provided his ambulance didn't drive off a cliff or something.
So we get to Rumble, and the first Raw match is for the Women's Championship. I don't really care, because Kelly Kelly is not involved.
Not pictured: reason to watch
Melina won, after Beth Pheonix made Melina kick herself with her own foot. That was entertaining.
Excuse me for five minutes...
The other Raw match was the World Heavyweight Championship match, with Mr. Cena facing JBL. The big story here is what would Shawn Michaels do? Choose between a big paycheck, or his own morality? Let's see!
Anyone know where I can get one of those kick-ass vests?
That's right, he had his cake and ate it too! Shawn put the boot to both of them, but then dragged JBL over for the pin. But he couldn't capitalize and Cena kicked out. All this after the first ref was knocked down and a new one came out, apparently unaware what had transpired previously. Cena ended up winning the match and retaining his title. JBL is Justa Big Loser.
Last, of course, was the Royal Rumble match. I don't feel like breaking down the whole thing, so I'll just offer a few thoughts...
Santino likely made history as the shortest time spent in the Rumble, getting elminated immediately by the Big Red Machine KANE(!). Glad to see him getting a push that he deserves.
Cody Rhodes eliminated his brother Goldust. I bet that led to some awkward family dinner conversation.
Hacksaw made an appearance, and it was every bit as epic as you imagine it would be.
Poetry in motion
Finally, we're left with Triple H and the three members of Legacy...
Naturally, it was a fair fight. Just kidding! They all teamed up on Trips. He managed to elminate two of them, but who was left standing in the end?
One dong to rule them all...
Will Randy get fired after winning the Rumble? I suppose there's only one way to find out! Well, two, since you could also watch live tonight, 9/8c on USA!
This blog has had take a shot or two at Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and with good reason. The man is borderline retarded. But he's a superstar from the good ol' days, and that carries a little cachet. So WWE.com wondered what he thought about today's superstars, and he was happy to oblige.
Hacksaw, of course, says his generation was tougher than today's batch of wrestlers.
Maybe he knows a thing or two. He was the first man to win the Royal Rumble, which is coming up this Sunday. He thinks today's wrestlers are more skilled than in his time, but we all know that's the same as saying that chick you're trying to hook your friend up with has a "nice personality." In Hacksaw's time, you didn't have these fancy moves and such. You got out there and let each other have it, and you were much better for it.
These may have helped.
Things were so hard back then, you had to carry a weapon to the ring. And not as a prop. You had to have something there in case someone got a little fresh you had to commit some good old-fashioned assault. Which is why Hacksaw carries a 2x4 with him to ring. He was told to bring something down there he could use if things got a little hairy. Consequently, he now has more than 30 "custom" pieces of wood at his house.
Google doesn't have a freaking clue what you mean when you search "custom 2x4." That is a nice table though...
Duggan says that in his current storyline, he's working with Cryme Tyme and not for them. It seems like WWE needs to lighten up and show black men in a more positive, leadership-type role, now that we're living in post-racial America. He also said that he's not very close with John Cena, but he's a nice guy. Well, thanks for telling us something we already know, Hack.
Adam, a native of the Garden State, and Matt, a proud Texan, crossed paths at university. They discovered they're both really into very silly things. Contact them at lolwresslin@gmail.com
