Heart Punch

I was suitably geeked when WWE announced that Saturday Night's Main Event was returning. Loved the show as a kid. It was, in many ways, the precursor to the type of televised wrestling we consider the norm today. Instead of the weekly squash match, you suddenly had all the big names facing off. Fun, fun times. We weren't even able to get PPVs in my area until the mid 90s, so this show was *it* when it came to seeing the best WWF matches of the time. Which, I guess, is why I was always more of an NWA/WCW fan. They easily had the better shows back in the day. You still had the squashes, but then you'd get something like an entire episode built around a Flair/Windham match that you just knew WWF would never do. Anyway, back to the present. WWF is now WWE. Gone from a relatively small, family owned business to a publicly owned, multimedia...franchise, I guess. Can they instill the same goofy charm in these shows as they did previously? Let's watch! -From the Cobo Arena in D...

So yeah...the rest of the show. Michael Shane & Oz v. Spanky & Ikaika Loa - The winner of the fall will get an ROH contract and be flown in to future shows. Which would make you think that guys would be backstabbing their own partners to ensure that they didn't win, but that would only happen in a logical world, I guess, because it sure doesn't happen here. Spanky and Oz open with a few quick reversal sequences. After a particularly nifty backflip off of the ropes to reverse an armbar, Spanky feels the need to DANCE! He turns and eats a spin kick, though, so that was probably ill advised. Loa makes a blind tag and comes in. Oz immediately plants him with an Exploder and tags Shane in. Again...why would he willingly leave the ring? Gah. Loa reverses a whip attempt, but Shane takes him over with a headscissors takedown. He follows with a suplex and gets two. Loa makes the tag to Spanky. He and Shane get into a shoving match. I guess the other story here is that the TWA gu...

FOR: Content! By people OTHER THAN ME!!! dances FOR: The SNME-like opening promos. AGAINST: I hope the throne doesn't catch fire. FOR: Sharmell low-bridging Matt and acting like nothing happened. FOR: This match. They're not doing anything spectacular, but it's solid and all the little things are working. FOR: Matt's Scorpion Death Drop counter. FOR: The crowd getting behind Matt after the Side Effect. FOR: Good match. FOR: Regal's choice. Teddy bear or... FOR: Tazz: "I do like the pink." FOR: London catching Mercury's knee to start off. FOR: Mercury shoving London off the top turnbuckle. FOR: Did you see the kid in the front row cover his ears when Melina started to scream? Priceless. FOR: NORTHERN LIGHTS, COLE! FOR: London jumping on to Mercury's back. AGAINST: The blown landing. FOR: This match. FOR: Mercury turning Kendrick into collateral damage. FOR: Great finish, with Mercury's cockiness (which Cole was pushing thr...

So, while my PC was acting up, I watched a shitload of the wrestling. I even wrote about some of it, crazily enough! Let's see if I can save Matt from having to carry things around here. This is just the first half of the recap, as it's all I've had time to type up thus far and I need to hit the sack. Besides, cutting it in half will keep it from being 100 pages long. Hooray for false brevity! I'll open with the inaugural Ring of Honor show, The Era of Honor Begins. Because it was the first tape I picked up, basically. I don't particularly enjoy the ROH product because I generally find it quite bland. Wrestling without HATE has never done anything for me. Don't get me wrong, they put on some great matches and have a ton of guys I like to watch, but there's seemingly no emotion to the shows and they take themselves way too seriously. And yeah, the hardcore fanbase scares me. Err...I think I lost my train of thought here. Going off on tangents rules! The begin...

FOR: Benoit/JBL rematch! AGAINST: Though I was hoping for Benoit to crash JBL's celebration. FOR: Booker hilariously getting ahead of himself. FOR: Bobby Lashley, stealth fighter. AGAINST: Why are Booker's legs still in the air? Is that rigor mortis? AGAINST: What's up with Chimel's voice? He should be thankful Kennedy's still hurt. FOR: Stroke into the ropes. FOR: Nice little match. AGAINST: "Selection box?" FOR: Regal struggling with the rope. FOR: Dee Snider! That's what I'm looking for. Thanks, Cole. FOR: Until Burchill loses? Wow. AGAINST: Rasheed Brown's tights. FOR: The name "Walking The Plank." AGAINST: That was awful easy. FOR: Jillian's outfit. FOR: The crowd sign taking a shot at Brett Favre: "JBL WOULD HAVE TOLD US BY NOW" FOR: I thought I saw a cage up there during JBL's intro. FOR: JBL: "Did you know about this?" "ARE YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?" KENNEDY. AGAI...

SIGN OF THE WEEK: The Melina Scream-O-Meter FOR: London and Kendrick's ambush. FOR: The double front-back kick. FOR: Tazz: "Even when she's angry, she's hot." AGAINST: She's still doing that? FOR: Cole theorizing that maybe Kendrick and London shouldn't have done what they did. FOR: Did Melina just smack her own ass? AGAINST: Korderas is unusually easily distracted tonight. FOR: Dropsault! FOR: This match. FOR: The false finish on the sunset flip. I thought London had him. FOR: The replay showing London appear to fake selling the knee injury. AGAINST: What are Booker and Sharmell so happy about? FOR: Oh. A restraining order? FOR: This may be the most a jobber du jour's name has been mentioned during a match. FOR: Wait... so is Teddy just messing with Booker now? AGAINST: Dean trying to run Benoit over. He's gonna need a little more speed. FOR: The looping "J B L" at the end. AGAINST: The title match is now? FOR: Orto...

FOR: SmackDown > Raw. At least in relation to the unpredictability factor of this show. Honestly, the only Raw match where the outcome is in doubt is the one nobody gives a damn about (Show/Kane vs. Carlito/Masters). Do you really think Shawn's losing to Vince after the way that storyline's gone (and because historically, Vince's character has always taken a spectacular fall when it's time for the payoff)? Edge is beating Foley, Mickie should beat Trish if only to lose it back, and the only way HHH doesn't win is via act of God. On the other hand, anyone could win the triple threat match (though Angle retaining is the least likely scenario), Benoit/JBL could go either way, and Boogeyman vs. The Family T, to me, is one of those deals where the obvious outcome may not be so obvious. AGAINST: "Big Time?" You couldn't find a song from this century to get the same point across? FOR: John Cena's image. Look at it this way: once he loses the tit...