It’s a little late to be writing about It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but, like A Nightmare Before Christmas, the film that uprooted the Great Pumpkin from its place as Halloween TV event de rigueur, Charlie Brown & Co. are better after the holiday they’re meant to celebrate, once the hype has gone down and the world settles back into its routine. As much as Great Pumpkin is about the madness of candy-high children, its true focus is the agony and ecstasy of anticipation.
Forget about Charlie Brown for a minute. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is all about Linus. Linus and his security blanket. Linus and his undying faith that there is a Great Pumpkin and that his pumpkin patch is the most sincere, the most worthy of the Great Pumpkin’s attention. There’s something bittersweet about Linus’ belief in the Great Pumpkin. He only comes from the pumpkin patch that is the most sincere. Presumably, he only gives presents to the good boys and girls in the area immediately surrounding said sincere pumpkin patch. The rules Linus drafts for his holiday deity are decidedly low-key, rigid in their lack of true wonder. In the letter he writes to the Great Pumpkin, the only thing he asks is that the Great Pumpkin not tell him he’s a phoney if he indeed is one. The other children make fun of him because they believe in Santa Claus, a gift-giver with better publicity, but his disappointment on November 1st is a slightly magnified, slightly more existential problem than the one they’ll face on December 26th: Not only does Linus get nothing on Halloween (as opposed to maybe not getting everything on a Christmas list), but every year Linus waits in his pumpkin patch, staring down the reality that his sentient pumpkin doesn’t just fail him, but might not exist.
Linus-as-everyman is overshadowed tremendously by Charlie Brown, and it’s not hard to understand why. Here, as he does in every TV special and once or twice every fall in perpetuity, he tries to kick Lucy’s football, having been presented a signed (but not notarized) document promising that it will stay put. The confidence in Charlie Brown’s approach is heartrending–“This year, I’m really going to kick that football!” might just be one of the most hopeless sentences the English language can muster. It seems like Charlie Brown only gets one chance every year to kick that football, and that he’s never going to find out if he’s any good. That scene seems to have been added outside It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown‘s larger plot, a greatest hit added to please a fanbase always ready to laugh at poor Charlie Brown, but he fares no better on Halloween. He is invited to a party by mistake. He can’t make a proper ghost costume. He gets nothing but rocks when he goes out for trick or treating. We laugh at Charlie Brown, but only because we so deeply identify with him.
“I don’t mind the dishonesty half as much as I mind your opinion of me.”
But, compared to Linus, Charlie Brown is the king of the world. He ruins Sally’s Halloween, stays out in the pumpkin patch all night long, and is eventually dragged inside by his put-upon sister. Linus isn’t the Peanuts’ magnet for sympathy, but here, his connection to the viewer is deeper than most cartoon/comic strip characters ever achieve. Standing on the bridge with Charlie Brown, he vows that the Great Pumpkin is real, that he’ll come around next year, that we’ll all see what he’s talking about. Linus is the bum year, the bad holiday, the lost bet, the believer of absent gods. Charlie Brown may be us at work, at school, in public, but Linus is who we are at home, in private, doors shut and windows shuttered. We continue to believe in the ridiculous, and there is always, always next year.
For It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to work as holiday TV, it needs to have sweetness at its core, and that sweetness is Linus’ unending faith, naive and unshakable. The Peanuts, popular as they were (are?) with children, were never really a commentary for or about them, but about adults, seen here dropping rocks into Charlie Brown’s bag, and adult lives. The Peanuts lead their lives largely without the influence of anybody older than them, and, precocious as any of their actions or beliefs are, they largely mirror our own. Life tells us to stop believing in the impossible. Life pulls the football away when we go to kick it. Life gives us rocks. We continue to go trick or treating. We keep waiting in the pumpkin patch. We hope ours is the most sincere.
I’m having a tough time figuring out exactly how to take a comic book like Aquaman #1, which may be the first comic book in the Aquaman canon (I’m sure one exists) to assume that nobody–nobody–finds anything redeemable about the character when he’s not in or near one of the seven seas. Most first issues attempt to establish the hero as a man of valor, even in the face of poverty or enormous circumstance. The X-Men, for example, protect a world that hates and fears them. Superman is the protector of his adopted world. Their hardships are nothing compared to Aquaman, who walks away from the throne of Atlantis to protect those who make fun of him simply for trying.
It’s like Aquaman has been birthed into a world where everybody but him is aware of Challenge of the Superfriends, and his every selfless deed is met with scorn and derision. I imagine that this phase will pass as soon as he dispatches with some deep-sea baddies seen here swimming up from the bottom of the ocean, but stopping an armed robbery and carrying around a freaking trident aren’t enough to make people forget about his orange shirt or his fluency in dolphin. His Friend of the Fish persona is put to rest quickly, as Aquaman decides to dine at a local seafood restaurant after stopping the robbery.
No doubt, Aquaman is a tough property to revamp. His problems are perhaps a microcosm of that which has vexed DC Comics in their seemingly eternal struggle to eat into some of Marvel’s market share. The 1960s and 70s did an excellent job of delegitimizing every DC character not named Clark Kent and, after the Allan Moore/Frank Miller serious superheroics renaissance birthed the ultraviolent boom/bust of the 1990s, DCs roster walled itself off from the mainstream, killing and replacing iconic characters, bringing them back, hiding behind nerdier and murkier storylines that were longer, more complex, and more intimidating than a semester-long study of Ulysses. Aquaman’s actually had a few good runs, including one where a portion of the city of San Diego was sunken into the ocean, its inhabitants suddenly able to breathe underwater. Like so many other things in DC continuity, that piece of business was swept under the rug, and Aquaman continued to be the dude who rode a seahorse in Superfriends, whose main villain had a head like a hamburger.
HA HA, I'm a huge tool!
It’s cool that they’re trying to turn Aquaman around, and Geoff Johns, who has rebooted nearly every DC property under the sun, is the wise choice. The problem is in Aquaman’s petulant response to the bespectacled hipster and his later explanation that fish are, in fact, too stupid to converse with. Comic book fans, like wrestling fans or Star Trek fans, are locked in an eternal battle with respectability, and heroes like Aquaman don’t get it because they talk to fish. Green Lantern, to an outsider, is ridiculous because his weakness is the color yellow. Green Lantern probably wouldn’t stop to explain to a random stranger that his weakness isn’t really yellow in a strict sense, that it takes something deeper and more cosmic than a color wheel to ruin his day, but Aquaman is not above that. He’s a nerd. It’s one thing to be a hero nobody appreciates. Being a nerd? Correcting people? You save my ass from bank robbers, give me enough gold doubloons to put my children through college but if I ask “Hey, aren’t you the guy who talks to fish?” and your answer is “No, stupid. Fish have mudbrains too primitive for me to communicate with,” I am going to resent the hell out of you.
Ultimately, I’m hung up on a very small piece of Aquaman #1, and I think it’ll be interesting to see Aquaman do his thing despite the mockery he endures on a day-to-day basis. I suspect that Johns, whose work I’ve never been keen on, is reveling a bit in the lameness of Aquaman, or at least Aquaman’s perceived lameness, but there’s a chance that he’s wounded by the charges against his latest project, that Aquaman brandishes his trident at the snooty blogger and makes out with his hot wife on the ocean because he pictures him an aquatic badass, sees the work of his series not as establishing Aquaman in the larger universe of the DC reboot, but as lecturing readers about how wrong they were to mock the Atlantean king. If that’s the case, I give me the Aquaman of Superfriends. I’ll take seahorses over wounded egos every time.
In 2006, the debut of Kate Kane, the second iteration of Batwoman, was met with such praise/derision that the character managed to land in publications like USA Today and The New York Times, old media juggernauts whose pages rarely covered the world of four color cape-and-cowl superhero comics, unless a new movie featuring the X-Men or Batman was slated for release. It was a rare moment of cultural penetration for DC Comics, who so often appear inept when it comes to garnering anything resembling outsider press, but the thing about Batwoman that nobody could seem to make up their minds about was if DC Comics was presenting the adventures of a gay, Jewish superheroine without comment, in an innocent attempt to diversify a superheroine roster that trended Caucasian, ample-chested and straight, or if Kate Kane was merely a cry for attention, one that the media was, indeed, suckered by. Considering that I was largely done with comic books by the time she debuted in 52, the weekly comic book that promised to further shake-up the DC Universe in the aftermath of one of their yearly infinite crises, I was in no position to find out myself. But the character has persisted, even to the point that she ousted Batman from Detective Comics for a brief period of time and now is the focus of her own book, co-written and drawn by the indomitable J.H. Williams III.
Assuming that you don’t know anything about Batwoman (and I don’t, so we’re in the same boat!), Batwoman #1 has an irresistible hook–a supernatural killer/kidnapper of children who is the creepiest thing to come out of Gotham in some time. The Weeping Woman, apparently an urban legend of some kind, is the vengeful spirit of a woman who drowned her children, then drowned herself. Appearing to be made of water, she occupies a room, crushing the lungs of those inside. When she leaves, taking a child with her, the room smells like the sea. Regardless of any plot thread involving the government, Batman, or Kate Kane’s personal life, this is compelling stuff–far and away the most captivating mystery of any of the new Bat-books. A lot of that is due to Williams’ art, which is not only evocative, but frequently outside the lines of typical comic book presentation. This splash page, for instance, fleshes out the Weeping Woman through some police procedural while making her the center of focus, visually, despite her absence:
Other pages, including the title page, push towards a sort of psychedelia, an is-it-or-isn’t-it-real stream of events that navigate the murky reality of Batwoman #1‘s ghost story in ways that other mediums would struggle to reproduce, the actions and dialog converging so that the confusion of the victims feels more real than that of, say, the disbelieving girlfriend in a haunted house movie.
The things that don’t deal with the Weeping Woman are a little confusing to a first time reader like me, as the middle of the book serves as an infodump of things I’ve missed over the past five years. Kate Kane is no longer in a relationship with Renae Montoya, whose sexuality I would have never guessed from Batman: The Animated Series. She’s training a sidekick who, apparently, was less than useful in the recent past. Her father (at least I assume that’s her father) shows up, leading to another infodump about Kate’s sister and family history, and, while it’s all rendered very nicely, the book feels weighed down with words that, this early in the game, don’t feel as important or central as the kidnappings, or even the two page splash detailing the government’s interest in bringing Batwoman down.
However, Batwoman is an interesting character, one that I’m interested in seeing more of. It would be hard for me to ignore a monthly book by one of my favorite artists, but, buoyed by Williams and W. Hayden Blackman’s script and the sense that DC Comics has managed to create a real minority hero of consequence and purpose in five years, with a minimum of exploitation, the book speaks for itself, offering things to new and old readers alike.
For all the nice things I’ve been saying about current WWE Tag Team Champions Air Boom (note: I’ve never complimented their name), nothing they’ve done so far in “rejuvenating” the WWE tag team division has so far pushed any of the American tag team wrestling that set the standard for the genre way back in 1991. This isn’t necessarily the fault of Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne, who get along well and sometimes wear matching trunks, but due to an overall lack of depth in the tag team ranks, depth that isn’t going to be rebuilt overnight. We’ve got the Usos, C. Reks, the Sharecroppers, Swaggler and the New Mega Powers of Cena and the Rock, but in the early 1990s, the WWF featured the Hart Foundation/New Foundation, the Legion of Doom, Demolition, The Powers of Pain and the Rockers, to name a few. Guys were “tag team specialists” and, when faced with singles matches, tended to struggle without having a partner in his corner. That’s the way things were in the 1990s, and, if this match is any indication, there’s a lot of work that’ll need to be done before the fans start caring as much about tag team wrestling as they used to.
Now, comparing Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty to Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston isn’t fair to the erstwhile lads in Air Boom. Michaels went on to have a Hall of Fame career and Jannetty, despite his name being synonymous for tag team postpartom failure, is one of the most underrated wrestlers of the 1990s, a guy capable of having a good match with anybody–hell, a guy still having good matches with people, as his 2005 bout against Kurt Angle and a recent match against Tyler Black have shown. The success of the Rockers is that both men were unique, both men brought something new and exciting to the musclebound WWF, and that’s on display early and often in this match. How many other wrestlers in 1991 WWF were hitting moonsault presses and suicide dives? How many went at this level?
But the Rockers, despite their obvious popularity, were never the WWF’s top tag team. In fact, Jannetty and Michaels never won the WWF Tag Team Titles, despite several great matches the pair wrestled in for the belts. This was how deep the WWF tag team division was: There was a tag team midcard, and Shawn freaking Michaels was mired in it. Not to worry though, as there were other great tag teams in the midcard, like the Orient Express, which, here, is the duo of Paul Diamond (under a mask as Kato) and Pat Tanaka (also not of the Orient), who, in the AWA, were known as Badd Company. They, too, were a great tag team. If you put two great tag teams together, you get a great tag team match.
But Rockers/Express at Royal Rumble 1991 had an advantage that even most matches featuring two great tag teams didn’t: Both teams were experienced facing each other, as Badd Company once feuded with the (Midnight) Rockers way back in 1988. That level of intimacy is obviously very important to this match, which is equal turns wrestling, gymnastics and, above all, performance art. They know each others tricks and work them in well. They’re aware of small, incidental details (the black belt that comes into play towards the end) and use them extremely well. There’s an unexpectedly hot crowd, good commentary from Gorilla Monsoon and Roddy Piper, and the nefarious Mr. Fuji “relaying orders” at ringside, and while a few hiccups are noticeable, this is a deliriously good tag team contest–the sort of match others model off of. Apparently Michaels and Jannetty were so pleased that they went backstage and said “Top that!” which landed them in a whole lot of trouble (I imagine wrestler’s court isn’t kind to braggarts). It’s been twenty years. The Rockers and the Orient Express are still waiting to be topped.
Indy promoters: Looking for some free promotion. Leave a comment or drop me an e-mail about your online content, and I’ll gladly write you up in this space. You guys are doing a tremendous job and deserve more promotion than the WWE, which doesn’t need any help. If you like what I’m doing here, I’ll probably like what you’re doing. Let’s chat!
Jack Korpella Calls William Regal “The Living Legend:” I suspect Larry Zbyszko will be suing shortly.
Titus O’Neil Can’t Say “WWE” Properly: Yet he expects to be its next breakout star. The laughs are non-stop on NXT.
William Regal Getting Tired of Lame Trashtalk: Oddly, I suspect his comments were off-the-cuff, while I bet O’Neil and Bateman were fed their lines. The difference between Regal and the fish-lips this, dog bark that Talk the Talk Challenge participants? Regal sounds organic and natural and like he really means what he’s saying when he says that the two bit it. I don’t know how well O’Neil would do off script (since he’s so awkward on it), but Bateman seems like a natural, so it’s a bit of a waste having him go for cheap heat.
Tyson Kidd vs. Jey Uso: Not only is Tyson Kidd awesome, the match adhered to the secret, unwritten rule of putting a tag team specialist in a singles match: No matter how good they look, they lose. As soon as the WWE finds a purpose for Kidd, he’s going to turn a lot of heads. Until that point, I guess I’m going to struggle to find ways to compliment him on having good match after good match, as if such things were going out of style.
William Regal, During Maxine and AJ’s Guest Commentary: The picture says everything.
AJ’s Fascinating Maxine Fact of the Week: “She feeds off the souls of babies. Innocent, innocent babies.” Fighting words.
Maxine Insinuates that AJ Would Sleep With a Black Dude and a Midget, Possibly at the Same Time: If her parents actually watched NXT, I’m sure they’d be shocked!
Derrik Bateman Proposes to Maxine: It wasn’t exactly Randy Savage proposing to Elizabeth, but I got a chuckle out of Bateman quoting Bryan Adams (not the wrestler, sadly, though Adams didn’t have any quotes he didn’t steal from “Classy” Freddie Blassie), and nearly died when William Regal threatened to start self-harming. For point of reference, the best and second best proposal scenes in WWE history:
Cody Rhodes vs. Ted DiBiase: If Ted DiBiase’s new character weren’t literally the most boring thing on the face of the planet (he loves tailgating! he loves the fans! he loves attention!), I might have turned the corner on what was once an intense dislike for him, much like a fresh character turned around the flagging career of Cody Rhodes. DiBiase’s a guy with unlimited potential (his matches in NOAH were quite good, and he has matches like this that are flashes of something like brilliance), but there are simply too many dudes jumping around, pumping their fists and smiling for him to stand out on his own, without the last name. Good match against Cody, his former teammate, though it’s telling that this feud ended after a month and this match was demoted from PPV to Superstars.
Evan Bourne: Yes, Kofi Kingston, Primo, and JTG were in the match with Evan Bourne, but if there’s a reason to watch Air Boom face a random jobber pairing, it’s Bourne. He’s delightful. He does new things every week. He has a nice smile. There’s nothing about him to dislike, and, for the first time in his WWE career, he’s hitting his stride without the threat of being dismantled by Kane or injury. Of course, now that I say that, they’ll inexplicably turn him heel, 1-2-3 Kid style.
Questionable Decision of the Week: Eve bringing back the booty-popping moonsault. Just when I was starting to like her, she decides to once again prove that she has no rhythm. Kelly Kelly also brought back the Stinkface. Kill me. Kill me, please.
FCW Match of the Week: Mike Dalton vs. Antonio Cesaro (10/23/11)
The first step in Claudio Castagnoli realizing his dream to becoming a WWE Superstar, his FCW television debut was a high-impact, quickly paced match against Mike Dalton, showcasing, oddly, his backbreakers, which are straight-up nasty. Also his uppercuts. Also his cravates. Also the Ricola Bomb. Really, there’s nothing I can say about Antonio Cesaro that William Regal can’t say better. Watch the match. Also, watch for the pop-up European Uppercut, which is extra-devestating in this clip.
Random Video of the Week
Next Week: Ohio Valley Wrestling, NWA Wrestling From Hollywood, CHIKARA, and more!
Kevin Nash Deadlifts Triple H: The whole segment would have been pretty awesome if it had been as quick and ruthless as an Attitude era segment, but once Kevin Nash’s assault on Triple H went on for sixteen, seventeen, twenty-seven minutes, I started hallucinating that one of the extras begging Nash for mercy was Claudio Castagnoli and that someday soon, there’d be something resembling wrestling on Raw. As it stands, Nash picking up 260 pounds of dead weight from the floor was awesome for two reasons: Triple H trying not to smile, and Nash grunting as he deadlifted his KOed ex-friend. The second part of that statement is no joke–there’s a big difference between powerbombing a dude and lifting his lifeless body off the ground, and the effort Nash exerted in lifting Triple H up did more to convey the “reality” of the situation than the somewhat-shoddy camera work that couldn’t quite hide that Nash was holding his hand over the head of the sledgehammer.
Johnny Ace Recognizes Unsafe Working Conditions When He Sees Them: I was wondering how nobody noticed that Ace reinstated the guys who caused unsafe working conditions, and how nobody complained that Alberto Del Rio and John Cena didn’t have a freakin’ ring to have their last man standing match in. Apparently Ace saw, and is now covering his bases.
Dynamic Dude Burns: There were two this week, one by Cena and one by Punk. I’m always a fan of obscure WCW trivia. Now they just need to give Ace his Dynamic Dudes music when he comes out to deliver his mesmerizing catchphrases.
Yes, WCW paid good money so that Shane Douglas and Johnny Ace could enter to THE FAT BOYS. Amazingly, the company survived to see 2001.
Zack Ryder As Cena’s Partner: NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN TO HIM TONIGHT, RIGHT GUYS?
Del Rio and CM Punk Argue: I’d rather they wrestled, but beggars can’t be choosers, and the eventual PPV match between them should be great. Punk’s “Are you Aretha Franklin?” line was absolutely cringeworthy, but his burns on Johnny Ace, including the second Dynamic Dudes burn of the night, was pretty awesome. Somewhere, Shane Douglas is weeping into an extra large pepperoni pizza.
Questionable Decision of the Week I: I don’t know if I’ve been complaining about how Triple H doesn’t seem to take anything seriously as the COO of the WWE, but if I have, I’m going to take that back. When he does take things seriously, he unleashes some wickedly awkward dialog that crosses the line between sentimental and unintentionally hilarious. First, it was “I love you, Pop.” Then, it was threatening to kick CM Punk’s “skinnyfat ass” (which is an actual bodybuilding insult and probably could have further legitimized CM Punk’s complaints re: HHH’s taste, but instead they never brought it up unless it was replayed in, like, every video package ever). Now, to open Raw, we have “Kevin Nash broke my heart.” How ridiculous was this line? Even looking past storyline inconsistencies (wouldn’t you expect to be backstabbed by a guy you had a Hell in a Cell match with?), pretty damn ridiculous. So ridiculous, in fact, that Joel McHale made fun of it. Behold!
Then, as if by magic, the Triple H/Kevin Nash thing went from “Oh wow, cool,” to “Oh man, this is still happening, and we’re three commercial breaks into the show.” And then they replayed it, like, seven times. The whole thing. It’s easy enough to skip the highlight reel when I’m watching NXT or Superstars or SmackDown! on YouTube, but live? In person? It just keeps going and going and going, and then you realize that neither Nash or Triple H are full-time active competitors but it still won’t stop because stopping would reveal weakness and, hey, don’t we have a title match and the return of the Rock to build to but, wait, HHH has spinal damage, let’s see how. That’s not a sentence, but the first thirty minutes of Raw wasn’t a segment, unless it was, in which case it was written by the William Faulkner stand-in from Barton Fink, or, hell, Barton Fink himself, who was told “write a wrestling segment,” only to decide that something that only needed to be quick and dirty should be slow-burning art instead. It wasn’t, and the whole show kind of suffered for it. I still love me some Kevin Nash, though.
Questionable Decision of the Week II: Having Alicia Fox beat Natalya. I don’t need to go any further, but I will: This was clearly meant to be a shocking moment where the crowd would go nuts seeing one of the Divas of Doom shut down by the Pez Whatley of WWE Divas, but there was no reaction from the live crowd and the shot of Eve and Kelly Kelly looking on condescendingly did nothing to further the feud. I guess this means that Kelly Kelly or Eve will get the next shot at the Diva’s Title, but, by rights, shouldn’t that belong to Alica Fox? Decisions surrounding the WWE Divas make my head hurt.
Questionable Decision of the Week III: The Michael Cole Challenge. Literally zero people want to see Jim Ross get further embarrassed by lame-ass WWE storylines, but man is creative unrelenting. He’s fat! He’s got Bell’s Palsy! He really likes college football and barbecue! And he’s also one of the best fucking play-by-play commentators in wrestling history, a dude who doesn’t need crappy angles to engender fan sympathy because the other choices given to the fans by the WWE other than Ross have by and large been terrible. I’ve grown to kind of like heelish Michael Cole and think that he brings something to the SmackDown! table, but this angle feels rushed and horrendous, and it’s hard to take any of Michael Cole’s remarks seriously as a result. If you want JR back on Raw full time, just put him back on Raw. I promise you, nobody will complain if you spare us fifteen minutes of awkward mockery and rolling around.
Questionable Decision of the Week IV: Having the Sharecroppers dick Zack Ryder out of his first main event. Again, here’s a guy that doesn’t need stuff like this to happen in order to garner fan support. If you put him in the ring and have the Sharecroppers work him over while John Cena looks on helplessly from his corner, I’m going to care about Zack Ryder. If you have him get taken out in the back and change the match to a handicap match (John Cena’s third favorite match!), I’m going to wonder where the hell Zack Ryder is.
Questionable Decision of the Week V: Bringing in the Rock to team with John Cena to take on the Sharecroppers. Yes, it’ll probably be good/entertaining/worth the money, but the Miz is an ex-reality show star and R-Truth used to be K-Kwick. They’ve yet to prove themselves as capable of withstanding the verbal fury of a celebrity guest host, and now they’re going to be standing toe-to-toe with the Rock? That’s like bringing in an atomic bomb to take care of the raccoon in your garbage can. I was looking forward to seeing this as a 5 on 5 Survivor Series match, but I guess those don’t exist anymore.
The ICP Hatchetman in the WWE Intro: Gets me every time. There are 1000s of videos of Cena raising the championship, and they pick the one that subtly ties what is probably a quarter of the fanbase to exactly the sort of reviled, non-PG entertainment the WWE has been trying to separate themselves from.
Everyone Come See the Greatest Show
CM Punk Clowning Around: When Punk won at Money in the Bank, the immediate response was “Wow, we have ourselves a new Steve Austin.” That was never going to happen. Not because Austin’s popularity is unmatched and tough to replicate, but because Punk and Austin are worlds apart when it comes to personality. While the heel Austin of the Two Man Power Trip and the InVasion had some quirkiness to him, Punk is ultimately too nerdy to be the new Austin, which is fine by me. Watching him wave to the camera and pump his fist in a mock “one more match” chant is either fun or grating depending on your opinion of the guy, but CM Punk is unique, a man unto his own identity. We should stop trying to declare anybody the new anything, and be happy when wrestlers are allowed to be themselves. Afterall…isn’t that who Steve Austin was?
Teddy Long’s Response to Being Compared to FDR: “Thank you very much, playa.”
Bitching: And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. And bitching. The Punk/Christian show opener was one of the best in recent memory. No HHH. No John Cena. No Randy Orton. Two dudes who are very talented on the mic talking on the mic. They had absolutely no reason for their match later on in the night, but made it compelling, regardless. This, friends, is how promo segments should be.
R-Truth Makes A Good Point: After a good dismantling of WWE Tag Team Champions Air Boom, the Sharecroppers took to the microphone, where R-Truth said “We must have beat Cena braindead, because he picked the only guy who hates him more than we do.” I’m not sure what logic will have the Rock team with Cena this upcoming Monday (I hope it’s Muppet-related), but once again, a heel is making a plausible point. Now if they’d just explain why attacking Cena was so damn important to their master plan.
Daniel Bryan and Tyson Kidd Argue About the Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels DVD: You know, because D-Bryan was trained by Michaels, and Kidd is connected to the Harts? Midcard arguments are awesome! Especially when they’re between awesome midcarders! And Kidd got some good digs in, asking if Bryan’s favorite part was when Shawn “cried at the beginning, cried in the middle, or cried at the end.” The whole thing was awesome until Santino and his new, stupid hair cut broke it up, because since when did Santino gain the power to make matches?
Trent Baretta’s Tights: They feature Abe Lincoln. That’s unexpectedly awesome.
Cody Rhodes, Guest Commentator: Just about everything he said was gold. This, too often, is not the case with guest commentators, who usually do a good job of making me wish there were other TV shows I enjoy, to facilitate easier channel changing.
Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler: Ziggler keeps getting closer and closer to being a permanent part of the main event. Fantastic TV match against Randy Orton, who, since feuding with Christian over the summer, has consistently been part of his fair share of good matches. His mannerisms are getting goofier and goofier, and I hate that the ring apron DDT has now become a contrived spot as opposed to something that happens in the natural flow of the match, but his showings of late have actually been of interest, rather than being a long, drawn out wait for the RKO. The spot where he leapfrogged Vickie Gurerrero on the outside to attack Dolph was pretty cool, as was the finish of this bout. Good stuff.
Daniel Bryan vs. Tyson Kidd: They had four minutes. It was the best four minutes of wrestling this week. The Sharpshooter was countered into the LaBell Lock. More, I say. MORE.
Daniel Bryan Beard Tracker: Right now, it’s at a solid “Rugged.”
In His Awkward Way, Big Show Puts Mark Henry Over: He’s sounding more and more like a culturally out of touch dad (“Oops, I did it again” should have been left in the ancient past, like Show-Gunns. Or that lame reference to Show-Gunns), but, while talking about hurting places where he didn’t know he had places, Show did what seemingly no other WWE main eventer was going to, and noticed that Mark Henry is an absolute monster of a man, a mover of planets. I actually kind of marked out when Show asked for the ring to be reenforced, since that’s what any old announcer worth his salt would have said of a confrontation between two huge dudes.
CM Punk vs. Christian: Someday, these two will feud and it will be awesome. Tonight, they somehow had the third best match on the card, though it did well to build towards the eventual Punk vs. Del Rio match and continue Christian vs. Sheamus, which probably needs a Christian win at some point. If you’re a fan of either guy, this match bears watching. If not, I guess it’s a black mark on an otherwise very good episode of SmackDown!
Awesome Booker T Line of the Week: “Cody may have cooties, for all I know.” If the rumors are true and Booker T is going to be feuding with Cody Rhodes, this is one hell of a subtle way to get that ball rolling. A close runner-up was “I like Herman Cain. He’s my guy.”
Booker T’s Fave Five This Week: Wade Barrett, Daniel Bryan. Rough week for the Fave Five.
Questionable Decision of the Week I: Saying that the state of the World Heavyweight Championship is “in flux.” If it really is, then it sure as hell shouldn’t be. A draw’s a draw, regardless of how the draw happens, and the champion retains on all draws. End of discussion, WWE.
Questionable Decision of the Week II: Giving the Sharecroppers (That’s Miz and R-Truth, if you’re not up on my lingo), some tandem dance moves for their walk to the ring. Combine that with their cheerful rapping (something that they shouldn’t have brought back), and the pair are looking less and less like a dominant tag team gone rampant, and more like contestants on America’s Got Talent.
Questionable Decision of the Week III: While it was a good extended squash, there are three or four other tag teams on the roster who could have accomplished what Air Boom did in getting destroyed by the Sharecroppers. Two pay per views ago, Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne were on a level playing field. Now they get destroyed by a team that won’t even be in the hunt for the titles until after Survivor Series, if that? Were the Usos busy?
Questionable Decision of the Week IV: The Michael Cole Challenge is actually beating Michael Cole vs. Jerry Lawler for worst storyline of the year. The only way this could get worse is if Cole, after winning, makes fun of Dr. Death Steve Williams and brings out Fake Diesel and Fake Razor Ramon for awkward silence the likes of which only a 2011 Brian Christopher could earn.
At least Lawler finally admitted that Christopher was his kid. That “mystery” was hanging in the air like GTV.
