The Shoot #22
July 14, 2009
By: Joshua Piedra of WrestleView.com
-The First Shot-
Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another edition of The Shoot. I?m feeling kind of random today so I think that the main focal point of this week’s column is just going to be a bunch of random thoughts on a bunch of random things that happen to cross my mind about professional wrestling as of late. I?ve just had a bunch of topics rumbling around in my head for this week’s column so I decided to just write about them all.
Quick Shot are up first, however, as per my custom.
-Quick Shots-
Brian Lawler got arrested again after failing to meet the court’s demands following up from a June 26th incident where he was arrested for public intoxication. While I am sure Brian Lawler can choose his own path in life, one must wonder how this is going to affect the ballot of his father, Jerry ?The King? Lawler as he has recently announced that he is going to be running for mayor of Memphis, TN. One of the things that is placed under the political microscope is family and I am sure that Brian’s newest arrest isn?t going to do his father any favors.
Jeff Hardy STILL hasn?t signed his new WWE contract. If his aim is to take some time off, why doesn?t he just come out and say it? Knowing his past, coming out and saying that you need a break or some time off isn?t going to hurt your image. In fact, I think more people would applaud your decision because you would finally start realizing your bodily limits and actually wish to do something about it. Holding out to the last minute isn?t going to do you any favors. The WWE continued to push Jeff despite his indecision. Quite frankly, Jeff Hardy may be popular, but it baffles me why he continues to get the big push each and every time. Popularity may be one thing, but the guy is a liability issue all together.
TNA iMPACT! 2 doesn?t seem like it is going to see the light of day and if the first game was any indication, I?m not going to shed any tears over this piece of news. Warner Bros. didn?t pick up the studios where the game was being developed leaving Midway with the task of finding a buyer for the franchise (along with NBA Ballers). With the first game only moving 300,000 units (sadly with me being 1 of those 300,000), any buyer would be weary to pick this up. However, if a buyer could be found, I would at least hope, in a sense, that they could do a better job with the game to make it more appealing than its predecessor.
-The Big Shot: Three (Four) Random Thoughts from Around the World of Professional Wrestling-
Random Thought #1: Damn, that was a big title for a column
Random Thought #2: Seth Green on Monday Night Raw: Now? before you scratch your head, as you may or may not know, my column is written before Monday Night Raw and posted on Tuesday (which comes after Monday Night Raw unless your local market airs it at a later date). So yeah, I?m giving my thoughts on something before it even happens and you get to read about it after it happens! Don?t you feel special!
If you are a VIP Member and have listened to Wrestling News Live, the host, Trey Dawg, called it perfectly. The WWE would use wrestlers to guest host Monday Night Raw for a little while and then dip into the Hollywood celebrity bag and pull a random name out for your guest host. Little did we all suspect that it would actually happen this quickly. After the remarks of ?The Million Dollar Man? Ted Dibiase, I would have at least thought that the WWE could pull Dusty Rhodes out of Florida for one night and make him the guest host for this week’s episode. It would have made sense from not only an entertainment, but a continuity standpoint. There could have been a lot of nice creative pathways for the writing team to take with Rhodes in charge for one night. Perhaps, in classic WWE predictable fashion, they could have booked Cody Rhodes against Randy Orton to try and showcase Cody’s talents like Ted Jr did so adequately last Monday night, but no? we get the former son of Dr. Evil, the creator of Robot Chicken, and the voice of Chris Griffon? Seth Green.
Seth Green admits to being a wrestling fan, but I have friends who are also wrestling fans who can?t even tell which wrestler is which. I know that the WWE is an entertainment company that is striving for some more mainstream attention (especially after the Donald Trump fiasco), but bringing back these veteran wrestlers as your guest GM could have breathed new life into Raw and make it that much more interesting. Batista as GM was even pretty good because it tied storylines into it and made them continue to be fresh, rather than forgotten and renewed several months down the road. I can?t see why they could have continued that fashion for at least a little bit longer before dipping their hand into the celebrity name hat.
Random Thought #3: I know that this isn?t pro-wrestling related? or at least entirely, but Brock Lesnar is now THE man in my eyes. While Dana White got his panties in a bunch over Lesnar talking about Coors Light over Bud Light (and hey? he should be if he had a deal with Budweiser and this is company champion and representative stated that), but the rest was pure gold. The smack talk to Frank Mir all the way to saying he might go home and lay on top of his wife was all just pure gold and nothing more.
The press conference afterward just didn?t feel natural. Brock was up there and his apologies felt empty. It felt like he didn?t want to be there apologizing for what he had said and I don?t really blame him. Dana White said that this isn?t the WWE and that ?promos? like that don?t have a place in UFC, but my random thought is? what if they do?
What if Brock Lesnar went out there and cut a WWE style heel promo before or even after each and every fight. While it does mix a bit of entertainment into a serious business, what harm could it do? Dana White seemed to be in the minority when it came to people’s reactions to the way Brock Lesnar acted. Many applauded Lesnar for his ?mic work? and perhaps, that kind of attitude is what is needed to convert those still on the fence about UFC or MMA in general over to it fully. If they had a trash talker that people would want to see get shut up? knowing that the fights are not scripted like pro-wrestling, where anyone on any given night, could be the one person to shut him up, why not run with it?
Brock Lesnar could end up being UFC’s biggest draw, yet, the most controversial champion in the company’s history, but then again, I?m not an MMA Businessman? nor an MMA columnist… just an outside observer.
Random Thought #4: TNA’s Victory Road is the next PPV in line, coming up this Sunday, June 19, 2009. Be sure to keep a lookout this weekend for the Wrestleview Faculty Predictions, put together by our hard-working Anthony ?Mr. V? Valvo. While I will refrain from offering my comments on match predictions until then, I must comment on the strength of this card.
The card is weak? plain and simple. No beating around the bush, I will just come out and say it. There are not a lot of matches on this card that really grab my interest. Sting vs Samoa Joe has always been a dream match-up of mine so that is one that gets my interest as well as Steiner and Booker T (who I nicknamed ?Half and Half?) vs Beer Money Inc? and, well, that’s about it. Angle and Foley doesn?t really interest me. Foley should just stay away from the TNA World Championship, Nash and Styles doesn?t interest me because Nash can barely move so Styles is just going to bounce off him like a tennis ball, Daniels and Morgan sounds like it should be on iMPACT! Rather than a PPV event, and the women’s match is fine? I don?t usually care for women’s wrestling anyway. I don?t read spoilers so I don?t know what is in store for this Thursday’s edition of iMPACT! So I don?t know what else is going to be added, but whatever will or will not be added, it cannot be enough to garner any interest from me. On paper, this card just looks like an over-glorified iMPACT!, but we will see.
-The Final Shot-
So yeah, this was just an over-glorified Quick Shots column, but there weren?t really many big topics of interest, but rather, many small topics I wanted to get out, so rather than having three short columns, I decided to mish mash them together into one column. Before I go, here are some of my non-wrestling recommendations for the week.
Anime: Sword of the Stranger. If you like animated movies that feature samurais just cutting people up, with a good story, then this is the movie for you. Many hail Ninja Scroll as one of the best Japanese anime movies of all time, but I think that this movie surpasses it. It mixes both Japanese and Chinese languages and intertwines them beautifully to pull together this great story. It is absolutely worth it and I urge you to check it out!
Video Game: Continuing my Mega Manlove, if you have an emulator, I suggest you pick up Rockman no Constancy. It’s a Mega Man 2 hack that will bring you to your knees and make you cry tears of pain. It is just that difficult (well, on the difficult setting, that is). If you want a great hack, with some over the top action, then this is the game for you.
Music: Akiko Shitaka. Her music is awesome. While it is in Japanese, she also mixes Latin and Italian into her songs. The style of music is that of a big orchestra focused on a medieval melodic style. It’s very unique and if you?re a fan of music like that, you will not by disappointed. Just YouTube search her name if you want to take a gander at some her work.
That will do it for me this week? until then, feel free to hit me up using any of the following:
E-Mail: syscrash2002@hotmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/itoshinojjp
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joshuapiedra
Until next week?