Greetings one and greetings all it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow, the one and only Phantom Lord and this is the all mighty Rant Of The Week. As always I am coming to you from my bunker in the urban hellhole that is Brooklyn, New York and WE f***ING WON BABY. WE TOOK DOWN BELICHICK AND THE PATRIOTS. TOM BRADY YOU CAN GO SUCK IT CAUSE 18-0 DON’T MEAN A THING WITH OUT A RING.
Well now that I have the gloating out of the way let’s move on to the wrestling stuff shall we. I didn’t know what I was going to write about this week. I was going to mention something about the WWE going to HD. I think the sets look pretty swank and my hat is off to the WWE for pulling out all the stops with the new look. But I am a dinosaur who is set in his ways of standard definition. 1080 lines of resolution do not impress me. I have pretty good cable as it is right now so everything is pretty clear all ready. Besides years of sitting in front of a computer have left my vision from a distance slightly blurry at best so even if I were watching an HD tv I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference for a while anyway. It’s like that old line from John Madden. “If you stare at it long enough, eventually it will come into focus”.
I have seen some HD screen caps online though and those 1080 lines of resolution make Maria look like the angel that she is. On the other hand they make Snitsky look like a freak show and we really don’t need to be seeing backne like that. We also don’t need to be seeing Big Daddy V and all his flab like this so now that you’re broadcasting in HD for the love of God please put him back in a shirt.
The Royal Rumble was this last weekend here in New York City at Madison Square Garden. By all accounts the place was sold out and it was a heck of a show with a lot of surprises. The biggest surprise was the return of John Cena at number 30 and him ending up winning the Royal Rumble. It appears the WWE was able to do some old school kayfabing as John Cena was not as hurt as bas as it was reported. When I was reading the results as they were happening online I must admit I was thrown for a loop. Cena coming back and winning in the manner that he did was simply amazing booking by the WWE (most notably Michael P.S. Hayes and Pat Patterson) so kudos to you both. I’m debating if I should wait till it’s aired on 24/7 to watch it or to actually buy a copy of it on DVD. Either way I need to watch the whole thing from start to finish.
The match I’m most interested in seeing is the wild brawl between JBL and Chris Jericho. People have said that Jericho’s return fell a little flat. Well to a sense that might be true, but he and JBL have clicked and we all ready have a great feud of 2008 and we’re only a month into the year. There’s a lot of old school hate in this feud as JBL and Jericho have been trying to kill each other. This is one of the few instances where you can have a feud with two guys trying to kill each other and a title is not needed for it. If it were 20 years ago this in a sense could be the Magnum T.A./Tully Blanchard feud.
Ironic considering JBL hates Tully for some reason. Overall it is a great feud and personally I’d like to see an I Quit cage match or maybe even a Texas Hangman match out of the deal but in the end odds are there will be a Bullrope match between the two to end it and as long as there’s plenty of blood and someone gets cracked over the skull with a cowbell you can’t go wrong.
The big news out of the PPV was John Cena returning at number 30 in the Royal Rumble and he ends up eliminating Triple H to win the damn thing. Now word on the sheets is Cena simply was not as injured as they claimed he was. If that’s the case then more power to him and I’m glad he didn’t have to sit out a year (even if it was because he sandbagged Kennedy on a f***ing hip toss). But I have a theory as to why they brought him back so soon. As we know the WWE plans things out and then on a whim something happens and Vince says f*** it and they scrap everything and start over. Well my theory is that Bobby Lashley was to be number 30 and for some reason he was to get the mega push and shot at Wrestlemania 24.
But as we have now heard Lashley up and quit and the WWE went into panic mode and instead of just letting Triple H win (since we all know he’s gonna get a title shot at WM anyway) they brought back Cena. It’s just my theory and as you know I have plenty of them.
The thing that annoyed me about Cena’s return this Monday was the fact that Cena wants his title match now. It’s been scheduled for the next PPV No Way Out in about two weeks and it’s pretty obvious that Cena will be winning the title back. Yes it would be nice to have conclusion to the Orton/Cena feud but I wouldn’t have booked it like this. You see the confusion of Cena/Orton next month leads to a bigger problem. Who will face the champion at Wrestlemania 24? Well the plan going into the Rumble was which ever brand didn’t win the Rumble would get an Elimination Chamber match to determine the number one contender for their world title.
Well with Cena/Orton for the title RAW is now having a Chamber match. Only problem with that is Smackdown has also decided to do an Elimination Chamber match. Now I don’t know if this is the WWE’s way of sending a shot to TNA by saying “Here’s how you over book a gimmick match on a PPV” or if they are just that desperate for buyrates that they hope two Elimination Chamber matches will be enough to really boost PPV sales. All I know is one will over shadow the other and you can take a guess which one that will be.
Here’s a hint…it’s not the one with the guys from Friday Night. I mean I honestly can’t understand why the WWE is doing two chamber matches on one show. I swear if I didn’t know any better you would think this show was being booked after someone played a few hours of Smackdown vs. RAW (not 08 because who ever designed that game was on crack. I’m gonna get carpo tunnel with that damn grapple system). I’m not saying it won’t be fun to watch, but just by looking at who is in the matches you can tell who will be winning.
RAW has the more stacked line up as it will be Triple H, JBL, Chris Jericho, Jeff Hardy, HBK, and Umaga. Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who will be winning this match. I’ll give you a hint. He has an obsession with Iron Crosses and when he turns heel he has a messiah complex.
Yes it’s Triple H. Word on the sheets is Triple H is politicking like he was running for President to get the Wrestlemania main event against John Cena. I don’t doubt it wouldn’t be a good match. It just ruins the point of the Royal Rumble not to have the winner face the champion at Wrestlemania. I mean you could build up the heat for Cena and Orton over these next eight weeks or so and it would be insane come Wrestlemania. But hey why would we want to do anything crazy like being logical when we can go off the wall like at No Way Out.
On the other side of the coin we come to the Smackdown Chamber match. This train wreck (and yes it will be a train wreck) will include The Undertaker, Finlay, MVP, Khali, Big Daddy V, and BATISTAMA.
Yeah this is what you call the leftovers. It’s obviously going to come down to The Undertaker and Batista. Odds are The Undertaker will win and go to Wrestlemania and make it streak vs. streak against Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship.
The rest of the show will be filler. Honestly why even do a PPV. You know in the grand scheme of things a PPV is not needed every single month. I suspect as the economy worsens the WWE’s PPV buyrates will take a steep nose dive this year as $40 will prove to be to much of an expense for many. I got a good laugh when I read the WWE might actually up the prices of their PPV’s just to keep pace with UFC who have jacked up their PPV prices to $44.95.
Of course it’s no where near the insanity of Boxing PPV prices which are usually around the $49.95 mark ($65 for HD now if available). For my money you need to give me a reason to order. Wrestlemania as it looks will be a PPV worth the money. But No Way Out right now reeks of desperation. Is it going to be like this for every PPV now on? I mean is the WWE going to stoop to TNA’s level and load it down with gimmicks just in the hopes they get those extra buys? If that’s the case I’m glad I have WWE 24/7 because I can wait till they air the PPV’s in The Big Ones.
Moving along, since I brought up UFC it was funny to see the WWE and TNA working together to promote Brock Lesnar’s debut. A lot of people were hyped up for it. Me personally I wasn’t one of them. I have never been into MMA. The fights are either to short or to long. The big story with all of this was the fact the WWE licensed some footage of Brock to the UFC for the commercials for the fight. It was reported that Vince did this because he does not see UFC as competition.
Well of course they aren’t competing…UFC is running circles around the WWE buyrate and ticket gate wise. Shane McMahon apparently understands this but as we know, no one in that company listens to Shane.
Me I personally could care less about UFC. It’s basically like Boxing in the sense that it doesn’t have anyone that can draw me in to the point where I have to order a PPV. Now I’m sure I’m gonna get some hate for that, but its true. Perhaps with Lesnar I will pay more attention as there surely will be a flood of pro wrestlers who will try their hand at MMA. But for now I’m going to remain clueless just because I can. And don’t expect me to comment much on MMA/UFC in the future. This is a WRESTLING column. I’m not like Dave Meltzer or others who cover everything else. If I wanted to write a column on MMA, I’d do it on an MMA site.
I think that’s about it for this week because I really don’t have much else to say right now. I could comment on Bobby Lashley but there’s a lot about that story that doesn’t make any sense and I have found for my sanity it’s best I avoid things that don’t make sense. But then again I watch TNA so I guess there goes that theory.
All I can say for TNA is, thank God all mighty that this country recognizes parody because I’m honestly surprised the WWE legal team hasn’t sent a cease and desist on Stone Cold Shark Boy yet. I mean it’s a great character, but how far can Sharky go with it. Maybe they’ll give him an X Division title run assuming they don’t completely run the title and division into the ground like they have all ready.
There is also the matter of Awesome Kong. She is by far one of the best things in TNA and I’m looking forward to her match with ODB (who I’m also finding myself marking out for). But what is the deal with the concubine. I mean that’s pretty much who the chick in the Muslim garb is. And who is this chick who is being covered up? It’s Cheerleader Melissa…only one of the best women’s wrestlers in the entire world. I understand TNA likes to come up with their own gimmicks if they can’t get the wrestlers original one, but good lord why on earth do you cover up one of the most beautiful and talented women’s wrestlers in the world?
Meh all I know is ODB and Awesome Kong is going to be a fun match. But I wish she would lose the flask. She needs to bring back that rhinestone covered cooler with the beer again. I saw an OVW match where she had that and it was all kinds of awesome.
Before I go, I just want to say everyone should head over to www.mamajuanaenergy.com and check out JBL’s new product which he has described as being liquid Viagra. There are some down right funny videos on the website with him promoting this tonic. JBL says the stuff is so good his wife has banned it in their house.
So my collective hats off to JBL and his new endeavor with his company Layfield Inc. You have to admire him for coming back to wrestling because it’s fairly obvious that he didn’t have to.
Well on that note I am done for this week as always someone has to give you this information and it DAMN well has got to be me.
And oh yeah…
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