Heart Punch

More Matt in the credits! Hey, Sign Guy v2! Tables? Why tables? Don Vincenzo? Vince's little "C'mon, cheer" was funny. Sign Guy v2 is 1-for-1. They bleeped USA? They're in league with Hass--oh, right. I'm surprised they didn't dub in a "watch Impact" voice here. Speak on it, Kurt. Okay, THIS is unexpected. Is it wrong Vince & Mick dancing with the Dudette is still one of my 5 favorite RAW moments? HBK/Angle III! 30-minute-ironman! Haven't I been saying that for months? Trish! (Also, thre's the back kick to the incoming Daniels/Styles match at the TNA PPV. Competition rules.) I thought with the face turn we were getting the booty shorts back. Aw. Sign Guy's 2-2. These Trish/Victoria matches are always a good time. WHOA! Don't be flinging around my future mistress like that! Nice flying lariat from TS. Noggin knocker! F YOU CANDICE! F YOU WILSON! ™ slingshot somersault legdrop. Holy crap, I haven...

I'm just sitting here, trying to remember the last time there wasn't any wrestling on TV on a Sunday. Seriously, I'm not sure if that's been the case my entire life. Pre-Heat you had WWF syndicated shows and WCW always had a Sunday night show as well. This really is the end of an era. Oh well, might as well get at this. Onward and upward, or something. -We open the show with hype for WWE Homecoming (and Shane Douglas just had *another* coronary. AND THAT'S A FACT, JACKASS! What a catchphrase...). Heart Throbs v. Eugene & Tajiri - Lilian is wearing shockingly little tonight. That gets this show an automatic thumbs up. Which serves to even out the automatic thumbs down that seeing the Heart Throbs causes. Eugene snatches one of their boas and auditions for the role of Throb #3. Antonio is not amused, jumping him before the bell. He works him over for a bit, but Eugene comes back with...a bite to the ass. Whatever works. A jealous Romeo runs in. Eugene takes him do...

And alas, my friends, the last episode of Velocity is upon us. Actually not, I guess, since both it and Heat will now be broadcast on WWE.com , but my dialup connection just snickered and reminded me that both shows are still dead to me. Interestingly, neither Matthews or Romero took the opportunity to mention that this is the last show on TNN and that fuck...you might want to spend your Saturday nights watching some other channel come next week. Burn the TNN bridges and TNA skullduggery in the same sentence. I can't believe I've never used "skullduggery" in a recap before. Tremendous word. William Regal & Paul Burchill v. Scotty 2 Hotty & Funaki - Josh is apparently turning this into a Velocity retrospective, as he yells, "Somebody call my mama," out of nowhere. Romero asks what the hell that means. Josh tells him that not only does he not know, but he NEVER knew! Somewhere, Cat is smiling. His mama, however, is not. At any rate, Burchill and Funaki...

FOR: Recalling the past Booker/Christian history. FOR: That second-rope powerbomb. FOR: Sharmell's eagle eyes. AGAINST: Christian not doing a spinerooni of his own. FOR: That sequence out of the corner. AGAINST: Why's Nick Patrick bothering to replace the turnbuckle pad? FOR: Eddie's clearly acting. AGAINST: A horse ? FOR: "Jillian and I had a face to face talk and I'll tell ya, it was... shocking..." FOR: "Presidential casual" FOR: JBL taking a shot at Bush there? AGAINST: That stupid shake Kennedy does in his motion chyron. AGAINST: Stacy's dress. It's so not her. FOR: Even though you can see the "black eye" joke coming it's stil funny. AGAINST: Isn't it "S-Y-L-V-A-I-N?" FOR: Actually showing us some of Sylvan's modeling photos. AGAINST: What's he yelling at Stacy for? FOR: She doesn't know either. FOR: Sylvan's missile dropkick. AGAINST: Why does Holly get to hang out with th...

Matt Sydal! He beat Kevin Steen in the finals, which I hope everyone will agree is great. Sydal deserves the attention. Steen, on the other hand, deserves to fall in a hole and not be heard from for a few years until the talent actually lives up to the potential. This year's tourney looks a bit more iffy than in the past, but with IWA's financial problems and pretty much half of the original lineup dropping out over the past few weeks, I'm sure Ian did what he could to deliver a pair of kick ass shows. Night two, in particular, looks killer. Besides, anything they put out would have been tough to compare to last year's TPI, which might be the greatest tournament in the history of pro wrestling. At any rate, I'll be picking this up from SMV the second it comes out. You should too. If not for the great wrestling, do it so we can see a TPI 2006.

I meant to finish this earlier. Honest. But I've also been frantically trying to watch the entire first season of Lost over the past week, so that took precedence. I'm done now and wow. Just...wow. Can't wait until later tonight. What the fuck is in the hatch? Gah! This is maddening to me. Great, great show. It's running neck and neck with X-Files (in it's heyday) and Homicide as my favorite show ever. But that isn't why you're reading this (is it too much of an assumption to think that someone actually is reading this?). We have the penultimate edition of Heat ready and waiting. Too bad it's a PPV hype show. -Earlier, John Cena arrived at the building. He limps in and Grish asks him about his ankle, after Angle murderized it on Raw. Cena claims that it's fine. He's gonna tape it up and he'll be ready to go. -Clips of Steve Austin's appearance on the Bernie Mac Show. You know, Austin at 10% of his peak is still more engaging than 95% of t...

8-MAN TAG! Sweet! The old new belt. I was still surprised Cena didn't do the spin thing with a Big Eagle replica. Ever watched an old Angle match and wonder where the mass "You Suck" is, or is that just me? Vince here? Wow, it's like I have a brain. NO PANTS, that's whatcha got. I know Kurt's MY hero. He should steal the belt and jet, now. This just in: angry Vince rules. Taboo Tuesday? Oh, the EPMD (my background sing, my background sing for the crossover). 2 for 4. Well, that's plenty stupid. And for the first time in Rawbservations history, I'm not wearing pants! They should get Maria in on this and just call them Mean Girls (which I guess would make Torrie Rachel McAdams by default, Victoria Lindsay version 1, Candice Lacey, and Maria Karen. Or Lindsayv1 Candice....you know). Ma Trish! Again! Yay! Carpet Muncher from Torrie, which explains why she's married to a guy like Kidman. Widow's Peak! NO! DEATH TO VICTORIA! ...

AGAINST: Forgetting to tape this show. AGAINST: Forgetting to reset my VCR clock. FOR: Benoit/Christian tonight. FOR: Orlando's earnestness. You can tell that he's tired of being embarrassed by Benoit every week. FOR: Booker making the save makes sense with his issue with Christian. FOR: Making it a tag match. Nice callback to the days of the Heyman book where this sort of thing happened every week. AGAINST: When did Sharmell get out here? FOR: Tazz explaining how Orlando's losing face with all of these quick losses. FOR: The Crossface counter out of the Unprettier. FOR: Orlando and Christian arguing after winning the match. This is what heels should do . FOR: This Orton/Taker video package. FOR: David Batista, Madcap Practical Joker. AGAINST: What, they're just going to announce a new No. 1 contender? FOR: That was actually done pretty well aside from Canon having to reach across Long to grab the mic from him. AGAINST: Eddie's new music. Yes, sti...

Joined in media res... I miss Evil Shawn. He's a consumate pro as a face, but still. Yeah, Todd. Pull a Luda and move, bitch! Git out the way! The robe doesn't match the outfit? For shame, Ric. No double strut. A little disappointed, I gotta say. He's not MexiCAN...I love JR trying to no sell this crap. What's the over/under on the first KILL WHITEY sign? "There is a man in that ring wearing khaki shorts." Baseball slide clothesline! FOLDING THE SHIRT~! Wave of the Future! I like King tying in the handicap match to the JR's no sell. "That was a hole in one." Do we have to wait to put Angle in the Hall of Fame or could be just do it now? It's getting cold in herre/so take off all your clothes. Out of all the Audioslave songs to choose, "Be Yourself" is the worst possible entrance music. Please. C'mon. YES! THE QUEEN IS BACK! I'm not crying, it's dusty in here! Fucking...display key on the remote! M...

AGAINST: Doing the first hour. (So I'm really not. Cubs did it.) AGAINST: The lack of control one has over the webcast. AGAINST: MNM losing. FOR: Like Justin said, they'll probably win when people can, you know, actually see it. AGAINST: Eddie's new music. FOR: This is the best video recap they've done yet. FOR: They start off beating the hell out of each other. AGAINST: Rey can't do the 619 in a cage, can he? FOR: Nice of him to realize it. FOR: POWERBOMB~! AGAINST: Rey going for the escape so soon. FOR: I haven't seen a side Russian legsweep in about four years. AGAINST: Is the cage door locked? Can you go out the door? I missed it. FOR: Eddie mistakenly backdropping Rey up onto the cage wall. FOR: Rey's dropkick from the top rope. FOR: Oh, you can go out through the door. AGAINST: These commercial breaks really hurt the flow of cage matches, more so than others. FOR: The huracanrana off the top. FOR: Eddie deciding not to just leave...

FOR: Over/under on combined "last Thursday Smackdown"/Friday Night Smackdown references: 19. AGAINST: Where's Jillian? This seems fishy. AGAINST: A Heidenreich singles match. FOR: At least it's not an Animal singles match. FOR: LOD/MNM next week. AGAINST: That's not the smartest thing Melina's ever done. AGAINST: You might want to mention the guy's name if you want to get him over. FOR: I'm just going to call him Brian Black because I don't remember his character's name. FOR: Black covering himself by commenting on Jillian's earrings. FOR: The "in the ring" addition doesn't take away any of the innuendo from that statement. FOR: So where is the Undertaker, anyway? FOR: That's three. FOR: That's a different way to call somebody out. FOR: Randy and Bob playing the "father" card WRT Rey. AGAINST: Hey, how's UPN gonna fill the next three Thursdays? FOR: Beat The Clock 2! FOR: This would be ...