Farewell Jericho!

WWE Monday Night RAW 09/27/10

Monday Night RAW kicks off with The Miz, cutting a promo on Daniel Bryan, followed by a tag team matchup.

First off, let me just give props to The Miz. He's officially "broken out", and is a staple in the WWE now. His mic skills really are awsome, and considering where he started, his success is impressive.

And what is up with Morrison giving his glasses to kids in the crowd now, during his entrance? John 'The Hitman' Morrison...?

The Miz & Alex Riley vs. Daniel Bryan & John Morrison:

Thought the match was a good kick-off, got the crowd going, no real big spots though, nothing overly impressive. After the match things broke down, and in a pretty awful set up for a match, Daniel Bryan just attacked Morrison for literally no reason, I'll just overlook that....

So it's Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz vs. John Morrison at Hell in a Cell, in a 'Submissions Count Anywhere' Match.... Which is a no brainer considering The Miz and Morrison don't have submissions.... Sometimes I think they hire baboons to write the mid-card scripts....

Divas Battle Royal:

Ok, I'm gonna try to watch this seriously and critically, here I go.... Highlight of the match was Eve eliminating herself from the match. Nattie wins, and I suppose that's the best case scenario, can't go wrong with Hart blood in ya. She's a good wrestler, and I genuinely feel sorry her having to be in the company she's in.

Backstage with Ted DiBiase and Maryse:

Not sure what to expect for next week, returning Diva perhaps?

Sheamus looks like a cartoon character. I look at him and my mind refuses to believe a human being can look like that... White as snow, and fiery red hair. It's hard to stand out in the WWE these days, and he does a great job. He's got great mic skills as well, fella. Sheamus issues an open challenge and we cut to a commercial break.

Sheamus vs. The Great Khali:

Ah, two foreigners. One from Ireland and one foreign to a scrap of wrestling ability... Sheamus beats the shit out of him (holy cow Sheamus' chest really shows those chops, I'd have LOVED to see Sheamus vs. Benoit). Khali getting squashed? Now that puts a smile on my face.

Time for 'The Cutting Edge'. Tonight Edge interviews the anonymous RAW GM via the laptop. I caught myself laughing at "Why do you have to hate, yo?" and felt such shame... RAW GM sets up the next match.

Edge vs. John Cena:

I think Cena has a dropkick now. He's been perfecting it for three years I guess. In another three years will he debut a goddamn German Suplex? Edge hits the spear after an average match, and pins Cena clean, which I was impressed with. But of course, Cena's foot is underneath the bottom rope, and the RAW GM restarts the match. Aaaand Edge is tapping within 15 seconds, and I bury my head in my hands...

After the match Edge snaps and trashes the laptop. "You've got the crazy eyes..." Haha, oh that was good. Edge goes 'Flair' on the laptop and drops an elbow on it before going 'Benoit' on it and smashing it into his own forehead, busting himself open in the process. Don't imagine Vince was too happy with that. Just because you can't hit others in the head, doesn't mean you can do it to yourself!

First promo I've seen for Jericho's new DVD: Breaking The Code -- Behind The Walls Of Jericho. Looks AWSOME. Honestly, whether you know anything about him or not, Chris Jericho is a great reason to be proud to be from Winnipeg. What a personality, and an incredibly hard worker. Can't wait to watch the DVD, and I recommend everyone check it out as well.

Nexus vs. Mark Henry & Evan Bourne:

I don't like calling Matt Sydal 'Evan Bourne'. This is my blog, and damnit I'm calling him Matt Sydal. And don't even get me started on 'Daniel Bryan', Bryan Danielson you are free from the WWE's stupidity here on my blog! Rejoice!

Anyways, short match. Very sad to see that Sydal's push has officially bitten the dust, and he's tagging with Mark Henry now... But his Shooting Star is always flawless, and tonight is no different, though Nexus somehow picks up the win. And proceed to beat Henry and Sydal down. Matt Sydal is a lot like Jeff Hardy, he's an amazing bumper. There's very few who possess that natural ability, and Sydal is one of them. Guy can take some sick looking bumps.

What kind of accent does Wade Barrett have? I'm embarrassed to guess... >_> I always get British and English and... other accents... confused...

Johnny Knoxville hosts RAW next week! Well that should be good for a laugh.

David Hart Smith & Tyson Kidd vs. Cody Rhodes & Drew McIntyre:

TJ Wilson and Harry Smith that is... I'd better make up my mind about this whole "real name" thing. Don't worry, I'll never say Chris Irvine vs. Adam Copeland...

Should be a good match, let's see what happens here. Nice pace here, Kidd takes some stiff shots. Shorter than I thought it would be, Rhodes & McIntyre pick up the win. Oh no! Dissension in the ranks! Seems like they're flirting with breaking up The Hart Dynasty, smart move I think. Both guys could flourish on their own.

Chris Jericho vs. Randy Orton:

Jericho out to the ring! So listen up you gelatinous tapeworms! Jericho lists opponents he has beaten for... an impressive length of time. He is interrupted by Randy Orton's theme music, and out comes the Viper. Jericho has begun his tour with his band 'Fozzy', so he will unfortunately be written off the show tonight. Sad to see him leave AGAIN, but he will be back.

Jericho nails a beautiful Lionsault towards the end, before Sheamus interferes and draws the DQ. After the match Jericho hits the Codebreaker on Orton and stalks him with a steel chair. Jericho takes an RKO for his trouble, and then a STIFF looking punt to the head. Jericho is stretchered off to end the show. Not sure when he'll be back, hopefully sooner than later though.

I don't watch WWE programming very often anymore so I can't really say how this show stacks up to recent ones, but I didn't think it was bad. Lack of talent combined with PG Programming is DEFINITELY hurting the product, but tonight's show was alright.

Well, until next week, and in closing: To Chris Jericho!

The Wounded

May 16, 2004 -- As Eddie Guerrero wanders unknowingly towards the side of the announcer's table, John Bradshaw Layfield turns suddenly, steel chair in hand, and blasts Eddie with sickening force, right on the top of his head. The sickening sound of steel on bone resonates through the arena, as Guerrero crumples to the ground.

Moments later we are greeted with a horrific sight: As Eddie sits upright, his back against the fan barricade, blood cascades out of a gash in his forehead, covering his face and chest in mere seconds. The bleeding is profuse and uncontrollable. What would normally be considered a medical emergency goes untreated for 15 minutes, and Guerrero loses a drastic amount of blood as he finishes the match.

January 7, 2007 -- Triple H aggressively lifts Randy Orton to deliver his signature Spinebuster. At the point of impact, however, something is clearly wrong as Triple H clutches his right thigh, in agony. When his knee impacted the mat, the force tore his right quadriceps muscle (the largest muscle in the human body) right off the bone.

Triple H knew he was severely hurt, and communicated it to the three other men in the ring with him, as well as the referee, yet received no immediate medical attention, wrestled for over 10 more minutes with only one good leg, and finished the match. He would later undergo major surgery to repair the damage, and be sidelined for over eight months.

These are just two of countless other examples of WWE Superstars working through injury, something that is hard for a lot of people to understand. It seems odd to wrestle through a ruptured muscle, or a broken bone, or a severely lacerated head-wound, but it happens more often than you might think. Their is a sacred phrase in the Pro Wrestling universe, and that is simply "The show must go on." and anyone who chooses to lace up a pair of boots, needs to quickly learn to adopt this philosophy.

Half of it is passion. The undying drive to put on a good show for the fans, no matter what happens. The cameras are on, the lights are shining bright, and the fans are chanting your name. It would be hard for anyone to just pack it in, in spite of an injury.

The other half is kayfabe. From the moment the WWE logo appears on your TV screen, to the moment it's made its departure, the talent is living and breathing in kayfabe. Someone gets hurt during a match? Good, that's probably what their opponent said he was going to do to him. There are no breaks to get a doctor out to the ring and take a look at him, that is directly breaking kayfabe, and breaking kayfabe when the cameras are on is a gigantic no-no.

As a bit of an aside, breaking kayfabe in Pro Wrestling, would be like Rachel calling Ross "David" on Friends, and having it air.

Though some people may call it sheer stupidity and moronically reckless, there is a lot to be said for the dedication wrestlers have to their profession and their fans. To them, the show is #1 and everything else comes second. We should all be so lucky to find something that we're equally passionate about.

As of late, WWE has taken a much more family-friendly approach to their programming (something I will surely blog about later) and there are much fewer incidents like the ones I mentioned above, due to new "rules" being put into effect such as no more chair shots to the head, which can be partly credited to the discovery of extensive brain damage on Chris Benoit's brain (another topic I will cover here eventually.)

For those of you who stuck around to the end, you are rewarded (or possibly punished) with video footage of the two incidents mentioned at the top of the blog! Please be warned, things cannot be "unseen" in life, and if you are at all squeamish at the sight of blood, do NOT watch the Eddie Guerrero clip. I realize that now it is like a car crash, and you simply must look, but please be warned that it is extremely graphic not to mention mind-boggling that someone could lose so much blood and live to talk about it. The Triple H clip is harmless, though very interesting.

So whether you like Pro Wrestling, you hate it, or you just don't care, all I'm trying to do is help these guys earn a little more respect for what they do, and hey, maybe next time you hear someone talking about "all that ketchup on his face" you can say "Hey man! That shit's real!" Eddie Guerrero would appreciate it!

Eddie Guerrero at Judgment Day '04

Triple H at New Years Revolution '07

NOTE: Just as an interesting but related side-note, Chris Jericho actually attributes the fact that he's never sustained an in-ring injury, to being raised in Winnipeg. He says the cold makes us "Vikings", and you are welcome to take that however you please ;-)

The Basics

So before I jump right in to full on blogging, about my opinions and views, and reviewing things, judging things etc., I think it's a good idea for me to just dedicate one post to the basics. Things that seem so second-nature to me, but probably not so much to someone who isn't a fan. So we'll start at the top, and when I'm all talked out, I'll list some basic vocabulary at the bottom.

I think the "top", when referring to Professional Wrestling, is always going to be that age old argument: Is it real or is it fake? And my answer is simple: Professional Wrestling is not black and white. It simply cannot be classified as "real" or "fake", because there are so many different aspects to it, "Professional Wrestling" as a whole, simply cannot be labelled.

The best word to use when tackling the "fake factor" of Pro Wrestling, is 'pre-determined'. Every match has a pre-determined outcome, that the participants are aware of well before the match starts. Certain important moments, or 'spots', are choreographed beforehand, but for the most part, matches are called on the fly, and are spontaneous.

Pro Wrestling doesn't help it's own argument much sometimes, and it's primarily the punches that give it such a bad rap. Watch any wrestling match and, yes, the punches are painfully fake. What you need to keep in mind is that whenever two (or more) people are in the ring, having a match, they are working together. This is not a competitive sport (in this sense) like MMA, where you are actively working to defeat your opponent. Their #1 priority is their safety, and the safety of everyone involved in their match.

One thing that is important to understand is simply this: wrestling hurts. Yes, most things are pre-determined and the wrestlers willingly do the maneuvers, but they are not landing on a SleepNumber bed here folks. The ring is padded for slight protection (otherwise they'd break their backs), but when you're taking 20+ falls (or 'bumps') on it every match, 4 days a week, it adds up.

Another popular "fake vs. real" topic to discuss, is the blood. Most people are convinced that the blood is fake. If everything is pre-determined and planned out, then how could someone end up seriously hurt like that? While it may not be logical to most, yes, wrestlers cut their own foreheads and make themselves bleed in matches. This is called 'blading'. And while World Wrestling Entertainment has completely stopped the act of blading, it does still regularly happen in other companies, such as Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).

These are all things that I'm sure I'll come back to in later posts, but for now I think that about covers the basics. From here on out I'll be blogging completely in wrestle-speak, as I'll call it, so I'll try to define most of the strange words below, and if I happen to miss one, I'll make sure to explain in a later post. I get mighty carried away when talking/discussing wrestling, so I hope I can at least keep it interesting even when posts go longer than I expected them to, like this one. I expect I'll have another post up sometime next week, and I'll be getting into current events, issues and shows. Hope everyone tunes in!

P.S. Take it from a CreComm grad, folks:

"Fake is not a word I like to use because there's nothing fake about what I do. It's a show, it's a predetermined outcome; we're putting on a television drama, action, comedy, whatever you want to call it -- but it's not fake. Fake would be if I was just about to take a body slam, and my stuntman did it. Fake would be if I was going to take a chair shot to the head, and the chair was made of rubber. I'll tell the world that it's a show, but I hate the word fake. It's such an unfair term to us."

-Chris Jericho (WWE Unscripted, 2003)

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Wrestling Vocabulary

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Blade - The act of using a concealed blade to cut one's own head (or any other body part) and draw blood.

Ex. He did a pretty awful job of blading.

Bump - Describes any type of fall, whether it's onto your back, your front, your head, whatever.

Ex. That was a painful looking bump.

Card - Describes all the scheduled matches for an event.

Ex. The card tonight looks pretty good.

Job - The act of losing in a match.

Ex. I heard John Cena is expected to job to Funaki tonight.

Jobber - A wrestler whose primary function in the company is to lose in order to make his opponents look good.

Ex. Boy, MVP has become such a jobber lately.

Kayfabe - The Professional Wrestling world, not reality. To pretend or talk like events in Pro Wrestling are real, or when a wrestler speaks as his character not the actual person that he is.

Ex. Triple H said he hates Vince McMahon, but I'm pretty sure that was just kayfabe.

Mark - Uneducated wrestling fan. Someone who believes some aspect of Pro Wrestling is real, and that some storylines are real.

Ex. That kid is such a mark.

Over - Popular with the fans.

Ex. Chris Jericho is so over right now.

Pop - A loud positive reaction/cheer from the crowd.

Ex. Did you hear that pop when The Undertaker came out??

Sell - To make an injury look real, when it's not.

Ex. Wow, Randy Orton really sold that neck injury.

Shoot - Used to define something that's real, and not kayfabe. Opposite of a work.

Ex. I think Ric Flair's promo on Carlito tonight was a shoot.

Smark - Fans who have a good understanding of how Pro Wrestling functions, and who know that it is pre-determined. Opposite of a mark.

Ex. At least all the smarks got what he was talking about.

Spot - Used to describe a significant moment, maneuver, or series of events during a match.

Ex. Did you see that spot in Evan Bourne's match?? I thought he was dead!!

Squash - Used to describe a very short match where one wrestler was dominant for the entire match, and did not make his opponent look good whatsoever.

Ex. Hornswoggle got completely squashed tonight.

Stiff - Describes moves or punches/kicks that are harder than they need to be.

Ex. Mr. Kennedy was being pretty stiff with Cody Rhodes tonight.

Work - Used to describe events happening in kayfabe. Opposite of a shoot.

Ex. Was Rey Mysterio's injury tonight just a work?

Welcome to CreComm, maggots!

Well, the first week of CreComm is in the books, and they seem to be easing us into it slowly. Time for the Blog Assignment! So the primary function of this post is to introduce you all to my "new" blog, and let you know what you can expect to find here on a weekly basis.

I'm quite well-adjusted to being the only die-hard Professional Wrestling fan in the room at any given time, and I don't expect CreComm to be much different. My intention is to have a Pro Wrestling themed blog, hence the title. To give a brief education on my history with Pro Wrestling, I started watching probably sometime around 2003. I fell head-over-heels in love with it, and a lot of folks likely won't understand that, or will call me a redneck, but here's hoping that this blog can swing some opinions!

I also did some wrestling myself, have actual experience with the sport/business, and would still be doing it today if I hadn't fallen even more in love with something else (my fiancé). So expect to find show reviews, DVD reviews, hot topics, and breaking news right here, and my opinions on all of it!

I hope that even for the non-fans reading this, you can find it somewhat interesting, or that I can possibly inspire you to maybe check it out. I look forward to hearing from everyone, good or bad (I am always willing to debate), and I will see you for the first post!