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Wrestling fans will get the joke. Everyone else can enjoy all the other great content found here!

Tip of the hat to Bits & Pieces.

An interview with Scott Keith

A good interview with my buddy Scott Keith is linked from here. Scott is the author of several good books on professional wrestling, and has a new book coming out on Chris Benoit.

WHAT!? Hillary, Obama and McCain really on Raw?

WWE has been advertising Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama on Raw tonight. No one believed it, but then this video leaked.

This may be the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. Who knew American politicians could do wrestling catchphrases?

Before They Were Stars - Batista vs. Brock Lesnar

From their days in Ohio Valley Wrestling:

Ric Flair Appreciation Night

Eh, well, it was fun while it lasted. Apparently, fan-cam footage shot from the nose-bleed sections of a WWE live event now violates the WWE's copyright.

Sometimes it can be Shakespeare

Tonight's tribute to Ric Flair on Raw was one of the best things the WWE has ever put on television.

Very classy and emotional send-off for Flair. Well done, WWE. Well done.

Best. Wrestlemania. Ever.

Quick Wrestlemania 24 thoughts:

That was a thumbs up show if I ever saw one. I'd venture to say that top to bottom, that was the best Wrestlemania show I've ever seen (and I've seen them all). The Citrus Bowl turned out to be a great venue that really magnified the majesty and importance of the event. The guys all had their working shoes on. And with only a couple of exceptions, the matches were all very good to downright great. I watched it at the West Edmonton Mall theatres on the big screen in high def, and the show looked awesome that way. The place was PACKED (sold out earlier today), and the crowd was pretty hot for everything.

• The Belfast Brawl was short, but intense. Good stuff.
• The ladder match was an entertaining spotfest. The Matt Hardy run-in popped the WEM theatre crowd big-time. Having CM Punk win was an interesting twist. I just hope he doesn't cash it in for the ECW title. Really good match.
  
• Batista looked like he tore every muscle in his back on that power bomb. Another good match. Umaga is a very underrated worker.
  
• Kane. Yup. Worst match of the night just by the virtue of it being so short.
  
• "I'm sorry ... I love you." Awesome. Flair-Michaels was the match of the night, and one of the all-time great Mania moments.
  
• The women's match was almost saved by the blackout. Not offensive.
  
• Having Orton retain the title was hardly the worst booking decision ever made. At least Hunter didn't win. Plus, I've turned the corner on Randy. He's a great heel champion. They should keep the belt on him as long as possible. Another very good match.
• The Big Show-Mayweather match was way better than it had any right to be. Very entertaining and well done.
• Edge and Undertaker put on a far better match than I expected. The crowd at WEM erupted when Taker put on the gogoplata, and absolutely exploded when Edge tapped. Maybe Bryan Alvarez will now admit that the move is over. Great match, and very satisfying to see Edge get the headline spot on such an enormous show.

WWE Hall of Fame Liveblogging!

OK, we've got the HOF already lined up in its streaming window, ready to start at 5:30. The desktop computer is ready to go. The laptop is sitting nearby. The festivities begin in about 10 minutes.

5:35 ... Well, things haven't started yet. I guess the WWE means business when they say "Approximately 7:30 ET."

5:45 ... still waiting ...

5:55 ... Are we having fun yet? ...

5:57 ... Apparently, the delay is due to the WWE taping the inductions of Rocky Johnson and Peter Maivia by the Rock for TV first. Then when that's done, the webcast will begin.

6:06 ... At this rate, I'm worried that Mae Young won't live long enough to see her own induction ...

6:17 ... For the last 5 minutes or so, the HOF graphic showing up in Windows Media Player has simply said "Coming Soon." Oh joy.

6:22 ... Still no stream from WWE.com. Now I feel bad for making fun of TNA on Thursday night.

OK, not really.

6:28 ... If there's any good news here, it's that this delay is doing wonders for my hits and page views, as frustrated WWE fans try to find out what's going on with the HOF stream.

6:32 ... YAY! IT'S STARTED!

6:37 ... Jack and Jerry Brisco kick off the webcast portion. Virtually everyone has commented on the ridiculousness of putting the Briscos in together as a tag team, when Jack Brisco is more than worthy of being inducted as a singles wrestler due to being one of the great wrestlers of the 1970s and a former two-time NWA World champion. Jerry Brisco ... not so much. Yes, the tag team was the high point of his career, and he's an entertaining loyal McMahonite, but HOF material? Not quite.

JBL kicks off the Briscos induction by slamming the Rock for talking so long that Ric Flair had sobered up. It was meant to be funny, but came across as mean-spirited. Plus, none of us saw it.

Why, when it comes to tag-team wrestling, does JBL have this weird obsession with the Simpsons? I mean, I've been a big wrestling fan for most of my life, and I barely remember those geeks from Texas.

6:46 ... OK, I've pretty much turned around on JBL's induction speech. He won me over by the sheer force of his charisma, even if there were too many off-color jokes.

6:57 ... Jack gave a nice, understated speech largely thanking other people for his great career. Jerry makes some insider comment to Jericho about having 2 minutes for his match on Sunday night and works in an insider gay joke about Jim Barnett. After that, Jerry also gave a nice - if slightly overly long - speech recapping his career and talking about the importance of giving back to the community. Nicely done, gentlemen.

Miz can take off that goofy hat, please.

7:01 ... While I watch the induction video for Gordon Solie, it reminds me why I love the WWE Hall of Fame show so much: it's because for years the WWE completely erased the history of wrestling unless it was done under the WWWF/WWF/WWE banner. But now that Vince has a virtual monopoly on the industry and owns most of the tape libraries, the HOF serves as the WWE's acknowledgment of the REAL history of wrestling - that there was wrestling - successful wrestling - done outside of the control of Vince McMahon. And that's really cool.

That said, I always thought Solie was over-rated as an announcer.

7:15 ... Jim Ross gave the expected great induction speech for Solie. It is going to be a sad say when Ross is no longer with the WWE. Jim Barnett made another appearance tonight, having been referenced in both induction speeches tonight, despite being dead and not being inducted. Nice of Jim to mention Gary Hart. Maybe the WWE will induct Gary Hart next year, considering Mania is in Texas.

The acceptance speech by Solie's family was quickly interrupted by a moron who yelled "speak up!" about 5 seconds into the speech. And the heckling continued from there. Brutal. OK, the son who accepted wasn't the most charismatic person on the planet but have some class and let him give his speech.

7:20 ... OK, the second son made a terrible US election/wrestling joke that deserved to get booed.

7:21 ... Mae Young. I have such low expectations for this induction. Having Pat Patterson induct her was a MUCH better choice than the rumored original choice, Stephanie McMahon.

7:23 ... I'm sorry, but the highlight of this induction so far was the crowd shot of Victoria.

7:27 ... The most polite thing I can say about Patterson's induction speech is that he reminds me of a terrible lounge act in Vegas - the guy who thinks he's funny but really isn't.

And no sooner did I post that, then Pat broke out into song, and he has a halfway decent singing voice.

7:29 ... Mae Young is either extremely senile or extremely drunk.

7:32 ... I'm a bit worried about this speech going long because Mae is only up to the Bronze Age.

7:34 ... Candice Michelle is decked out in a fashionable shoulder bandage.

7:35 ... OK, Mae Young had her moment. She had her fun. Let's move on.

7:37 ... Eddie Graham is up next. This one could be interesting, as I actually don't know a lot about Eddie, and, of course, growing up in Winnipeg, it wasn't that easy to get Championship Wrestling from Florida on the local cable ...

7:41 ... I can't wait for the unedited DVD of this, as Dusty Rhodes also commented on how long the Rock talked. That must have been either the best speech in history, or a trainwreck of monumental proportions. Given that it was THE ROCK giving the speech, I'd venture on the side of awesomeness.

7:45 ... This is a compliment, albeit in a backhanded way ... but Dusty Rhodes is such a great talker, that you actually have to concentrate closely on what he's saying to realize that his induction speech on Eddie Graham is actually more about how great Dusty Rhodes is.

7:50 ... Mike Graham is trying to honour his dad, and these stupid wrestling fans keep yelling random things at him. Unbelievable.

7:52 ... Mike's donation of the photo of the first NWA meeting was a nice touch.

7:54 ... And that's it for now. Assuming The Score shows the TV portion of the show, I'll be back liveblogging that later. If not, thanks for reading.

Tonight's WWE Hall of Fame plans

I'm going to try to live blog the Internet and then TV portions of the WWE Hall of Fame ceremonies tonight. Tune in at 7:30 ET for the festivities ... all four of you who regularly read my blog.

It's Wrestlemania weekend!

The biggest wrestling weekend of the year has already started in Orlando, what with the TNA tapings, ROH shows, and tonight, things really kick into gear as the WWE Hall of Fame show is on, with the first portion being broadcast on WWE.com.

I'm willing to bet that the Hall of Fame show does not crash the WWE's servers, unlike, say, the TNA experience from Thursday night.

I know that the Americans get the last hour of the Hall of Fame ceremonies on USA Network. Is it getting any Canadian TV coverage at all? Anyone?

EDIT: Apparently, the TV portion of the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony is going to be on the Score tonight.

From bad to worse for Jeff Hardy

First the suspension.

Now his house burns down.

A final thought on Jeff Hardy's suspension

Of course, this 60-day suspension means Jeff's push in the WWE is basically over now. I mean, he's been suspended twice. And who on earth would put the WWE title on a guy who is such a problem?

This is cool

This is a rare convergence of my love for pro-wrestling with my love for Christian rock music:

Rockers Disciple Land Song On New WWE Album; Gain Support From WWE Stars Hawkins And Ryder

The WWE's "Moron of the Month" is ...

Jeff Hardy

As my good friend Scott Keith said, "Way to screw up your big push, Jeff."

Controversial Tell-All Book Reveals Wrestling Fans Are Fake

This is a repost from my old blog. But it's still very funny.


Controversial Tell-All Book Reveals Wrestling Fans Are Fake

Liveblogging Monday Night Raw

For something completely different ...

I'm going to try to live-blog Monday Night Raw tonight. All the fun begins in 15 minutes, when the Score starts the show...

7:05 - The Score is showing highlights of the WWE press conference today with Floyd Mayweather, and one of the first things they show is a dude wearing a UFC hat. Well done. Big Show looks very dapper in a suit.

7:18 - William Regal wants a photo-op with Cena, Orton and Triple-Haich (sic) for "prosperity."

7:23 - Cena stands nose-to-nose with Hunter ... which means, of course, that Cena is in the ring and Hunter is half-way up the ramp.

7:25 - Opening segment ends with Orton laying out Cena and Hunter. I suspect next week will see Cena lay out Orton and HHH, and then the week after, HHH will triumph over Orton and Cena. Oh, wait, he did that last week.

7:28 - The Score's sports cutaway just compared the Leafs vs. Senators game to Hulk Hogan vs. Iron Mike Sharpe.

7:32 - Santino and Carlito vs. WWE tag champions Bob Holly and Cody Rhodes. Please, let Santino and Carlito win the tag belts here.

7:35 - Phooey. Rhodes and Holly won. The match wasn't that great.

7:45 - Highlights of the Floyd Mayweather and Big Show build for Wrestlemania, and today's WM 24 press conference in LA. I would absolutely LOVE this feud if I could figure out why Big Show is the heel and Floyd Mayweather - the outsider, interloping, midget boxer - is supposed to be the babyface. That would be FLOYD "MONEY" MAYWEATHER, the BIGGEST HEEL IN BOXING RIGHT NOW! He's the BABYFACE in this feud.

7:46 - Tonight's main event - Cena and HHH vs. Kennedy and Orton. Reminds me of Sesame Street - one of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong ...

Hey, Chris Jericho wants in the Money in the Bank match at Mania. He gets to face Jeff Hardy. Well, that should be a good match at least.

7:58 - Chris Jericho vs. Jeff Hardy ... Commercial break. Good match so far.

8:07 - Jericho wins! Great finishing sequence.

OK, while that was a fine match, I wish the WWE would stop having Intercontinental champion Hardy and U.S. champion MVP continually losing all these non-title matches while never having them defend their titles. The secondary belts in the company mean virtually nothing as it without adding to this problem. I mean, Jericho just beat the IC champion clean, and I'll bet $100 that next week on Raw, he does NOT get an IC title shot.

8:12 - Wrestlemania is in Orlando this year. That would be, Orlando, Florida. One of the theme songs for Mania this year is by the Red Hot Chili Peppers ... a song called SNOW.

Alrighty then.

8:16 - Yay. It's the weekly Hornswaggle soap opera segment. Wake me when it's over.

8:28 - UMANGA! vs. D.H. Smith. I suspect the match will be over by the time I finish typing and uploading this.

8:30 - Young Mr. Smith lasted about 2 minutes longer than I thought he would. I believe the D.H. stands for "designated hittee."

8:32 - It's Crumpet and Tea Hour with William Regal, and Paul and Katie Burchill. Can someone please put the closed-captioning on so I can understand them?

8:39 - Currently on CNN-Sports Illustrated: Mayweather goes from WBC to WEE.

WEE?

Oh yeah, Shawn Michaels is wrestling Lance Cade. This is interesting only because Cade was a student at Michaels' wrestling school a few years ago.

8:46 - Ric Flair challenges Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania. I like Lance Storm's idea for this match: everyone thinks Michaels is going to win and retire Flair, so have Flair win instead, and then announce he's retiring.

8:55 - Yay! The WWE is putting the Maivia-Johnson family in the Hall of Fame! And the Rock will be inducting them! Awesome.

8:59 - With just the main event to go, I'm shutting down for the night. Time to get the kids to bed ...

WEE?

wbcwee
Originally uploaded by mjenkinson

Sports Illustrated gets its acronyms mixed up. But, seriously, you'd never see SI.com get "NFL" wrong in a headline.

WWE: Insert headline here

 

A funny little blooper on the back cover of the WWE's 2007 Survivor Series DVD. While it is factually correct to say that the extras on the disc will come from Monday's TV, that really should have been removed in favour of, you know, what extras from Monday's TV were put on the disc.

Buy Hulk Hogan's destroyed title belt

An actual ring-used WWF title belt that was worn by Hulk Hogan is up for sale on eBay. It's being sold by PawNtheSandman, who I can vouch for as a real person who is a serious collector of championship belts.

Background on the belt, courtesy of the auction:

On October 31, 1989, at WWF Saturday Night's Main Event XXIV, The Genius defeated WWF Champion Hulk Hogan by count out. Hogan was counted out after Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig hit Hogan in the back with the WWF title belt. After the match, Mr. Perfect stole Hulk's WWF championship belt.

Later that night, Mr. Perfect came out with the belt, and proceeded to destroy the belt with a hammer to send a message to Hulk Hogan.

For years after that night, many people wondered what happened to that belt. Many people believed it was simply thrown away. Numerous others believed the WWF Hardcore Title was made from the same belt destroyed that night in 1989.

Now we know the truth.

After being destroyed, Hulk Hogan's WWF belt, and as many of the pieces that could be found, were collected and eventually ended up in the private collection of then WWF referee/booker Mel Phillips. Mel maintained possession of the belt until I acquired it through his estate sale.

UFC 81

Tonight is UFC 81, featuring the very hyped debut of former WWF champion Brock Lesnar, who is facing ex-UFC heavyweight champ Frank Mir.

This was a show that for the longest time I had planned to buy. About a week ago, I changed my mind and decided I would skip this show.

It basically boiled down to deciding that watching Brock Lesnar's first UFC fight wasn't worth $45.

I have absolutely no doubt that I am in the minority on this one, because the buzz for tonight's show is gigantic, and UFC has very smartly cross-promoted the fight to WWE fans to get them to buy the show.

Bully for UFC. But I'm not plunking down $45 for a one-match show ... particularly when that match has the high potential to be a three-round snoozefest.

The secondary consideration in skipping the show tonight was that the only title fight is Tim Sylvia facing off against ex-Pride heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira - and it's for the interim UFC heavyweight championship. (Interim, of course, because of the contractual standoff with Randy Couture, who remains the official UFC heavyweight champion for the time being.)

I have and will continue to pay for UFC title fights - even interim titles on occasion. (I bought the December show, which featured the interim welterweight title match of GSP and Matt Hughes.) But Tim Sylvia is hardly the most entertaining fighter in UFC, and this match is nearly guaranteed to be a five-round snorer.

Bottom line for me: I'm figuring there's not going to be $45 worth of entertainment out of this show. And if I'm wrong, I can buy the DVD for $25 in a couple of months.

Now ... the April show in Montreal featuring George St. Pierre unifying his interim welterweight title against welterweight champion Matt Serra ... nothing will stop me from watching that show on pay-per-view.

Cool findings on the Interweb

WWE referee Charles Robinson has his own Flickr photo collection.

Some neat pictures in his collection.

Raw in HD in Canada = Raw in SD like last week

OK, I knew that because I don't have HD capabilities at home that I wasn't going to get Raw last night in glorious high definition. But I at least expected The Score to give us the 16:9 feed in standard definition.

Wrong.

Instead, we got a cropped 4:3 version of the show.

Oh well ...

Raw in HD for thee but not for me

The big news in the pro-wrestling world is, of course, the fact that the WWE's flagship show, Raw, moves to high definition tonight.

As someone who watches the majority of his television on either crappy 15-inch set in the bedroom or a crappier 27-inch set in the basement - both in very standard definition - I suspect the only difference for me will be the widescreen format and new Raw set.

Edmonton Journal review of Bret Hart's book

Full review is on the Journal's website.

While I enjoyed Bret's book tremendously as a gritty and detailed behind-the-scenes look at his wrestling career, I can't disagree with reviewer Ruth Myles's comment that "Hart slams others for their betrayals, real and perceived, but doesn't hold the mirror up to his own behaviour."

That's true. And it shows up most in the book when he's slamming his then-wife Julie for being cold to him at various points - whether she had jetted out from Calgary to New York or somewhere else to join him at a pay-per-view, only to go shopping during his match, or if she wasn't talking to him when he was home from a grueling road trip. Bret was very quick to point out Julie's perceived failings as a wife, but he was far less likely to admit his failings as a bad husband who was constantly cheating on his wife.

Not to mention, Julie raised their kids virtually alone as a single mother, and not once in the book do I recall Bret praising her for that - or even acknowledging that fact.

It's a shame that for all of Bret's openness in the otherwise brilliant book that he didn't open up a little more for some self-reflection on how his actions hurt his own family.