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In This Very Ring.... (Column #112) WWE's return to UK, RAW thoughts |
» Reported by Dale Mills of WrestleView.com
» On Saturday, April 30, 2005 at 5:59 PM EST
Yes. It's true. This really is In This Very Ring....
You know, sometimes work is well, hard work. I feel like Chris Benoit at the moment. I have had a brief fling in the main event of my profession but I was ultimately bumped back down to mid card, seeing others receive my push. But like the Rabid Wolverine I will keep on going, doing the job and maybe I will receive another crack at the top. Do I watch too much wrestling? Perhaps.
The week started of well enough with the road trip to the WWE Raw house show in Hull England. In a rare piece of planning, Me, Milky his bro, his bro's mate and my bro Glenn were all ready to go early, map in hand to find Hull, the Hull Arena and Asda. Asda in Hull? Yup. Because right there.... In Asda Hull, was an autograph signing of Kane and Victoria. Getting to Hull itself was no real problem as it really is just an hour down the road for us so, save from my knees going slightly wobbly as we went over the Humber Bridge(Biggish suspension bridge for those not in the know)it was all pretty easy. Finding the Asda store was a breeze too. So there we were, first in the queue(I said we were on an early one)waiting for Kane and Victoria to turn up. An hour in the sunshine later and Kane and Victoria were ready to meet the masses. It was all over pretty quick with Kane and Victoria flying through the fans quicker than Big Show goes through a buffet. It was very cool though as we managed to get a brief chat and photo with them both. Milky even managed to squeeze a kiss out of Victoria. Best pic of the day went to Glenn who managed to, in the middle of all the bedlam, get both Kane and Victoria to pose for a snap. A special mention must also go to the pic of Kane, who has a look of horror, confusion and fear as he sees Glenn stood before him. As the photo was taken by me, I'd like to call it 'The day Kane met his match'. After the fun of all that it was time to head to the Hull Arena to hopefully get some tees and get in the queue for the event. Another pretty painless ten minutes later we were there, parking the car and hot footing it towards the merchandise stand. £30 on a Capt. Charisma tee and £20 on a Jezza Ayatollah Tee later and we were in the queue being told that our floor seats were not exactly that. We were told it was the very back row of the tier for us. Best pleased we weren't. Turns out though that due to the tiny size of the arena, we probably had some of the best seats of the night. Anytime a grappler stood on a turnbuckle, looked up, all he would see was us lot. And when Christian got on that buckle during his ring entrance, looked up, saw us bowing down he beat his chest and pointed right at us with a smirk on his face. Was Glenn happy? Well we were inside, it wasn't raining and he was standing in a puddle. Priceless. Only slightly less cool was Batista showing his appreciation of us bowing down to him by bowing back to us. All in all the seats were very very sweet. I wont go in to any detail about the matches as I'm sure that you will have all read about them by now. So I'll end this particular tale with... Let's just say that we were all on a big buzz all the way home after seeing probably the best show ever.
On to Monday. I booked Monday off in preparation of going to Birmingham to a Batista and Christy Hemme signing but after a few phone calls we knew that it was no longer going to be 'Tista and Hemme and that there were only a handful of tickets left to get in. So, after being woken by a phone call from my bro, me, Glenn and Milky were all in the Milkymobile heading towards the Palisades shopping centre to get the autograph of.. well, we weren't too sure. Again, getting in to Birmingham and in to the shopping centre went without a hitch and we made it in plenty of time to secure some tickets. In fact four and a half hours worth of 'plenty of time'. A quick run to subway later and we were queuing again. Only this time it wasn't just for an hour but for four. We were pretty near the front(about ten or so peeps in front of us)and time passed reasonably quick so before we knew it we were ushered in to the Woolworth store for the immediate arrival of a WWE superstar. Anticipation was at fever pitch as every man and his dog was predicting who was going to replace the absent Batista. Jezza? Benoit? Benjamin? Just who would it be? Chances are that it had to be someone of some calibre to replace Raw's World Champ. And then it happened. Out came the Superstar. And it was...... Victoria. VICTORIA! DRIVING ALL THAT WAY AND QUEUING ALL THAT TIME TO SEE VICTORIA AGAIN! Bums. I guess it wasn't all bad as I did get a decent picture of us both together and Milky did manage to hit her with his Hardcore title(which she sold the shot)he took for the superstar to sign. So it wasn't all bad. Slightly deflated we headed back to the car for the two hour ride back home. Yeah right! If only it was as easy as that. We ended up getting lost, going to Wolverhampton, back to Birmingham, Stafford, Derby, Nottingham, Newark and then finally back home to Lincoln. Hey, what can I say? Road Trip baby!! And to round it all off, for the last twenty minutes or so of the trip, Glenn was busting for the toilet. But that's a WHOLE different story....
Although almost everyone I spoke to this week hated it, I really enjoyed Raw. The segments with Trish and Vis were absolute Gold. I never knew that Trish had such great comedy timing. To be honest I wasn't all that interested with Kane going one on one with big Vis and I think that 'The Powers That Be' probably thought that most felt the same and their match was hardly gonna add to the overall buyrate so full marks must go to them for at least making the build up to the bout well worth watching. You also got to give props to Trish for letting Vis lay on a lip lock. I reckon that most women would rather take a Tombstone, RKO, the multiple German Suplex and the Pedigree all in a row rather than that! Good on ya girl.
Just what has happened to Christian? Over the past few weeks the fans have suddenly started to get in to his character big time. And this weeks Raw was no different. CC was all over Raw. Hell, Chrissy was in more segments than the mighty HHH. Aitch almost put him over during their screen time together. And CC even got one over Naich at one point. Rubbing shoulders with the big boys on TV is always a good sign.(As Glenn pointed out, if Christian was to join Evolution he probably will be world champ by the end of the year) And what about the main event match against Batista? Not only did he have a solid if un spectacular bout, he was so way over with the live crowd to the point that the TV version had to be edited with cheers for the World champ, Batista, as he was laying a beating on 'Capt. Charisma. When your mid card heel is garnering more cheers than your Babyface world champion something must be done. For me that something, at least for the time being is nothing. We all saw what happened to Randy Orton when the fans decided to cheer for him and 'The Powers That Be' decided to pull the trigger on an early babyface turn. Shoulder surgery isn't the only thing the 'Legend Killer' is recovering from. We all saw how the slow burn approach help propel 'Tista too the top so I advise that is the way to go. By the time that Christian is drafted to Smackdown! he will be way on his way to being the most over face on Thursday nights. U.S Champ on his first night on SD? I can see it. And now Eddy has turned/in the middle of a Heel turn SD will be needing some fresh Faces on the scene. Fresh programs against Angle would also make fantastic TV. Both the backstage interaction and in ring product would be world class and for once it wont all be down to 'The Olympic Hero'. JBL Vs CC would provide much fun too. Hell, I would say that Christian against anyone on Smackdown would be better than seeing Capt.Charisma against Jericho for the bazillionth time. Let's hope that 'The man of the Peeps' gets the chance to shine that he so obviously deserves and heads towards a World title run. He has a catchphrase now so the rest cant be too far away. Can it?
Sometimes you see a guy with a gimmick for the first time and your immediate reaction is 'poor bastard'. I had such reaction when I saw Matt Morgan. Is there really any need to give Morgan a stuttering gimmick? Are 'Creative' really that stuck for ideas? Well, it looks that's way. As always, I will give the gimmick a chance because who knows, It may turn out to be the doorway to superstardom for Matt Morgan. It could be worse I guess. They could have stuck an eye patch on him, a parrot on his shoulder, made him drink Rum on his way to the ring and christened him Capt Morgan.
Sticking with crap gimmicks that just might get you over. Looks like Heidenshite is on the verge of a decent babyface push. Who would have thought that cutting a poem promo on farting in Chicago would have been the start of a face turn. Not me that's for sure. But if the fans can get in to a disasterpiece reading Heidenreek that has got to better than them being indifferent to a Heel Heidenrich. We all know that Heidenrich is never going to main event WrestleMania or anything but there is always room for solid comedy mid card performers. Maybe, just maybe Heidy will become a useful member of the roster. Did I really just say that?
Was that a sick looking bump that Paul London took this week on SD or what? I swear every time he does to the ring the first thing on his mind is 'what sick bump can I use today?'. Ok, maybe that's not the first thing on his mind. The first thing probably is 'How the hell did I let them turn me in to an Ultimate Warrior tribute act?' Anyway, whatever is the first thing on Paultimate Warrior's mind is, as long as it get's him on my TV each week, I say bring it on!
When did Ken Shamrock join a tag team, dye blonde streaks in his hair and start hanging around with Joey Mathews?
Hey y'all, don't forget to check out http://www.freewebs.com/millsanomics/index.htm and http://www.freewebs.com/millsanomics2/index.htm because there has been a big update with loads of new pictures all over.
Email me at
big_d@wrestleview.com
Msn me at
big_dalebowski@hotmail.com
This has been D.
Back To WrestleView.com
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