Sunday 18 April 2010

WWE comes to the UK...






Last weekend, I went to see Smackdown in Manchester, and on the whole it was pretty good. There were some great matches and more importantly some great chants.
When Zigler came to the ring, all I heard around me was "He's Jeff Jarrett", when Kane came to the ring there were chants of "Issac Yankem" clap clap clap clap clap and "He's a dentist." When Fat Hardy and Drew MacIntire were pissing about the crowd were chanting "we want wrestling", and when WWE's own MCMG clones 'the Dude Busters' came out, we got the most British of chants, straight from the football terraces of "who are ye? who are ye?" - not because we Brits didn't know who they were, but because they are shit. I think my favourite of the night was the chant of "enter-tain-ment" clap clap clap clap clap... you know it works.
So that was my live experience. It was pretty cool, the crowd was a bit flat, but on the whole pretty decent. I took my kid brother for his 11th birthday and he got to meet the Honey Monster. I was hoping to see HM in a hardcore match, but I'm a dreamer, man.
The highlight of the night was the triple threat match between Edge, Jericho and Swagger. Of course, a title changing hands was less likely than Ric Flair being tolerant to homosexuals, but it was worth it to see Bret Hart as enforcer putting Swagger into the victorious Swagger at the end of the match. (Like in Smackdown, Swagger had got a pin on Jericho from Edge's spear).
On to the broadcasts...
Lets's be honest, guest hosts on Raw are a bag of shit. A bunch of C list celebs who are only vaguely famous in America plugging their bullshit while we're waiting for the wrestling. This week was no exception. Contrary to what the commentators on Raw would have you believe, David Hasselhoff is not seen as a god in the UK (they're thinking of Germany), people see him as a joke. A bit of a sad parody of a famous person, the type of guy who student's though was cool about ten years ago. His recent hit only charted in the UK because of people ironically buying his record because Radio One's fattest DJ, Chris Moyles thought that it would be heeelarious (and it really was).
I'm not the biggest fan of women's wrestling, but I thought that the Baywatch Babe match was just a little bit insulting. Who was it aimed at? Baywatch hasn't been on the TV for about 15 years and most of its fans aren't teenage boys anymore, but in their 30s with kids and dogs and patios and pension schemes and are so desensitized to the excesses of internet porn that a few women jumping round in swimsuits just don't do it for them any more... unless they're farting on a Brazilian girl or something.
The fact is that the whole show was bullshit, especially the thinly veiled excuse to bring Orton over Smackdown (he's wrestled everyone on the Raw roster at least 3-4 times), by offering a shot at the World Championship against Swagger at Extreme Rules.
The highlight of the show was Miz's microphone wrestling against Bret Gart, that was funny as fuck.
Onto Smackdown...
at the minute, I think I prefer Smackdown to Raw, mainly because of CM Punk's microphone wrestling. I've marked for Punk for a few years now and can't wait to see him get back in the ring with Brian Danielson or Daniel Bryanson, whatever he's called now. Bring in McGuiness (AKA Desmond Wolfe) and Samoa Joe from TNA and you've got an ROH circa 2005 reunion - and it would piss over most of the WWE roster at the moment.
I'm not going to go into details about the matches on this one, but draw attention to one of the funniest moments I've seen on WWE for a few years, and completely unintentionally.
There was a point where the Miz came down to commentate on the six-man tag match between Hart Dynasty/Ray Mysterio and SxE. The result's was so obvious; it is actually a scientific and logical impossibility for Rey Mysterio to lose in a match with CM Punk. So, the Miz is sat at the announcer's table bragging about his Blue Peter badge. If you believe the Miz, then he was given it by "the UK" and it's like a "key to the city". Any UK fans will know the Blue Peter is the program of choice for little middle class kids who are into making stuff with "sticky-back plastic' and toilet roll tubes.
I'll let you judge by the clip. Just a side note, my missus went to school with Helen Skelton.



Bring on Lockdown and Extreme Rules!

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