Ladies and gentlemen, well, gentlemen mostly, although for future reference, I have nothing against lesbians, it is that time of year again. Everyone gets excited. The biggest event of the year. Playboy diva time! That cover is amazing. For the eejits who don’t appreciate Maria, just take one look at the cover and thou shalt be converted.
Anyway, more of my hormonal chattering later, Lord know I like to do these things chronologically, but this week I must include this. An official Big Phil apology for being offline and columnless this past week, the lovely people at Microsoft decided to add a new game to my pc, called Blue Screen Of Death, or BSOD for short. This game is different from the rest, as IT decides when YOU play. This week it decided it was going to play the level called “Unmountable Boot Volume” So a week and £120 later, I’m back! With a vengeance!
Now, to business comrades, Raw business. Starting with Big Show taking on Brandon “The Thrill” Hill. Now, if Shane is as big an MMA fan as they say, I think we can safely say that he’s in charge of this angle. Methinks that if they’re trying to build up Show as a heel, maybe they should instruct the fighters he faces to stop acting like the heel. Fake attacking the crowd, hiding behind the ropes? It would make much more sense for the little guy to go down fighting than running. Fighting but having no effect mind.
But by God, the Mayweather promo went down hill fast. At first the indifference to Show was funny. But how many times do we need to hear how “you’re here to stay.” Breaking news fact fans, he’s not. “I’m gone break yo’ jaw” Fair enough, but how many times? The ten you said you would? Stop building yourself up Floyd! Mick Foley sums it up brilliantly, if you talk nothing but trash about your opponent, and they beat you, then you’ve been beaten by a nobody. If you beat your opponent, then you’ve beaten a nobody. Way to go Floyd. Great start. Don’t give up the day job mate. The farce carried on when he even tried insulting Jerry Lawler. Fool. No-one disses the King!
Now onto a storyline you’d have to be dead not to feel anything for, The Nature Boy’s impending retirement. I’ve got a feeling this one’s for good boys, not a retire and return in 6 months job. Made a fair bit of sense having Naitch and HBK team up, it just kinda reinforces the mutual respect these two legends have for each other. Some great facial work by HBK here, he looked like he felt every single chop that Trevor Murdoch did. Couple this with some nice back and forth wrestling and we have a decent match on our hands. Surprised J.R hasn’t picked up on HBK training Cade yet. Nice match with a heartfelt promo at the end. It’s obvious we’ll see HBK wrestle Flair. But I’m still undecided over who will win.
Loved the backstage Cena promo, I’ve enjoyed all his work tonight to be honest, especially the guest commentary, but I’ll get to that later. Loved his impression of Kennedy too.
So, onto Raw’s Squash Match Of The Week © Sponsored by Super Crazy Ring Mat Cleaner ® , for when those pesky luchador stains just won’t come out! As the (amazingly funny) joke implies, this was nothing but your standard squash fare to put Umaga over as a monster in time for WrestleMania, doubtless we’ll see Batista in one of these matches along the way. I have the feeling we’ll see U.S gold vs. IC Gold in this Raw vs. SD match though, if Batista is facing MVP this week. It would add something, and I can’t see Jeff still having the Intercontinental championship if he’s going to win the MITB this year. Final note on this Umaga vs. Super Crazy match, I was going to fast forward, but I didn’t get to the remote before the match was over.
Hallelujah, the Highlight reel returns! Boy am I grateful. This was a classic segment, with some great promo work. And nice pyro. I like pyro. I must catch up on some episodes of “Are You Smarter Than Snitsky” and “Cooking With Goldberg.“ Incidentally, anybody want to know what Goldberg’s favourite ingredient is? Squash!
I honestly thought this was going to be the time when they turned Y2J heel, but nope, looks like they’re keeping him a tweener for now. Jeff got some pretty strong heat it seemed after that twist of fate though.
I’ll just skip over Kennedy vs. Cena. Decent match, don’t get me wrong, but it was just like filler but with back story. Beautiful face buster on the apron.
Now. Onto our MAIIIIINNNN EVENNNT! The playboy reveal!! Now, I wonder how many forum posts we’re going to read saying that this segment wasted valuable “rasslin” time and so on so forth. Now, I’m not your typical smart fan, I happen to love the stupidity and the great storylines, it’s escapism. Plus, nobody can dispute that Santino and Maria were looking like they were having a real domestic “You’re causing a scene!” Beautiful touch with Santino’s censoring. The cover looks really nice, but by god do I wish I was 18 for a day. I’ll just wait two years and go on eBay. Santino was just pure gold in this segment, as normal, and it’s nice to see the Marella Lawler feud possibly re-ignited.
Cody vs. Carlito, wasn’t sure who would win, also wasn’t sure if I cared who won. I was thinking we’d be seeing a tag title match at Mania to be honest, champs vs. SanCarlito as I call Santino and Carlito. But I suppose Santino will be too busy sobbing into his copy of Playboy.
It’s nice to see Mae Young being inducted into the Hall Of Fame. And it’s given me an idea. Next week, I’m going to have a list of around 20 wrestlers who have made an impression on me. This will NOT include ROH or Indy wrestlers, as I have no method of following them, this list will consist purely of WWE Superstars and TNA superstars. Then, I want people to email me with their choice for one of them to go into the Big Phil Hall Of Fame, Class Of 2008. The 5 people with the most votes will be inducted. This will happen every year my friends, but it requires reader participation, which I haven’t had much of recently! More please!
I’m sorry, but do we really need Mike Adamle? He doesn’t add much, and he constantly messes up, J.R and King did his job perfectly well before. Sorry, just needed to vent.
Right, Finlay is going the way of Lashley here, not out the door, but his major angle is happening on raw rather than his own show, therefore I’m predicting Finlay will move to Raw next draft. Which I believe will be in the next three hour show after WrestleMania rewind, which looks awesome by the way. So what the hell happened to Finlay and McMahon’s deal? Turns out he was conspiring with the rest of the McMahon clan, so I think we really need to hear off them to clarify what’s going on. Touching segment building up the JBL Finlay Mania match.
Now, time for the wrestling main event, although my main event was definitely the cover reveal. Anyone else notice Triple H already has a new set. And it rocks! Some great work by Cena on commentary putting HHH over as the superior to both men, it took me by surprise and gave me respect for Cena that he managed to barely talk about himself and kept all focus on his opponents. This was one of those rare times where a guest commentator adds to the match rather than the match adding to the guest commentator. Some nice chain wrestling, with a sensible non-clean finish.
So, that’s it for another week. I might just be able to have that list of 20 up this week to the start the voting, keep checking back.
If you want to (please do) leave me feedback, good or bad, or you want to vent your opinions and possibly (probably) see them included in a future edition of Big Phil’s Ramblings, please email me at bigdaddyphil92@hotmail.com. Or you can add me on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/angelsbreathingwhitefire
So, until next time
Keep Rambling
Big Phil
