The Rant of the Week: Ok, so I was wrong and why is Vince ripping me off?
Submitted by Phantom Lord on Saturday, March 20, 2004 at 9:51 PM EST



Greetings conversationalists all across the fruited plain, it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow Phantom Lord and this is my Rant of the Week. One thing I’ve learned about myself from my Psychology class is that I have way too much stress. Put together with my personality type and other factors and it all adds up to the same thing. I am on the fast track to some serious health problem’s. More then likely a stress induced heart attack or something, but that’s the great thing about writing this column each week. I take the stress that builds up and I channel it into this column. So if you’ve ever wondered why I’m so negative…now you know why.

Of course with this being the final week of having to have work done in school and two massive executions…err presentations coming up for me, you can understand why the stress would be building up. Add to that the fact that miserable prick Old Man Winter just won’t die and a cold I’ve been battling for the better part of a week, I’m headed for some major burnout again. But before I get to the rant, for those of you who missed South Park this week…For Shame. Matt and Trey hit one out of the park this week with the season premiere. They take a great Anime spoof and sprial it into a huge knock on the Janet Jackson backlash. Butters takes a ninja star to the eye and one parent was outraged that his little daughter saw Cartman’s penis (Which if you watch, you can clearly see which made the scene even funnier). Ah well with that vision for any potential pedophiles who read this column…IT’S ON TO THE RANT.

Ok so I was wrong. You hear me? I WAS WRONG. We ordered Wrestlemania and despite the insane PPV price, It was worth the money. With the exception of the tag title matches and the Playboy piss break, the PPV from start to finish was great. Now is it me, or has John Cena become incredibly white ever since the Janet Jackson incident. I used to get a kick out of his “rhymes”, but now he’s back to doing the same straight from the prompter raps that he did when he first started the Vanilla Ice Gimmick. With that aside, I still loved the outcome of the match. I couldn’t stop laughing when he grabbed the brass knuckle and clocked the Big Show. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Cena should of won that damn title in Iraq in front of the troops. He would have been put over beyond belief if they did that and perhaps right now they wouldn’t be worried about creating new stars, which I will get to in depth about later.

Christian vs. Chris Jericho was a great match. It’s just a shame a title was not on the line in it because had this been say for the Intercontinental title, this match would have been ranked a lot better then it’s been. With that being said, I still loved this match. Even with the WWE Slow down style of Less is More, they still were able to pull out all of the stops. I marked out when Christian locked on the Texas Cloverleaf on Jericho. But the bigger mark out moment came when Trish came running out and at that moment I said to myself “Watch her turn on Jericho”. She does in the end. I loved it since this whole Saved by The Bell romance was so stupid. You just know Trish likes being a dirty girl and now that she’s a heel, she can be one again. I doubt we’ll see anything like that time she damn near fingered herself while doing a table dance to distract the Dudleys, but the fact that Christian stole her innocence as Good Ol’ JR pointed out and Jericho has now snapped, I think we have the most underrated feud of the year right now.

The Rock & Sock vs. Evolution match came off way better then I expected. Mick Foley looked like he didn’t miss a beat since officially last being in the ring. I still think Flair and The Rock should have had a match on their own, but the Garden was so Pro-Flair it isn’t even funny. Again another mark out moment came when Flair wanted to rip off the Peoples Elbow. The Rock should of laid down and sold the damn move cause the roof would of blown off the building had Flair hit the Strut and Elbow. In the end it was a damn good match and I loved it when Orton hit the RKO as Foley was setting up for Socko. That my friends is great old school heel work and kudos to Orton for pulling it off. After the match, The Garden gave Foley a much deserved standing ovation and I don’t care what Foley says, he is going to pull a Terry Funk and come out of retirement. How could he not after get that kind of reaction. I figure if there is a chance for a true dream match like Foley vs. Flair, they need to go for it. That would be one hell of a match to build for Summerslam.

Moving along we had Brock vs. Goldberg and god bless my fellow New Yorker’s cause even I didn’t see this one coming. Let’s skip back to Summerslam 2002 at the Nassau Mausoleum. Brock is taking on The Rock and the crowd turned on The Rock and was cheering the hell out of Lesnar to the complete shock of the WWE. The crowd was chanting “Let’s Go Lesnar” like they were at a hockey game or something. The Rock flips off the crowd as he’s going for the elbow, Lesnar nips up and catches The Rock for the F’5 and wins the title and the place goes ape shit. That was the start of the Lesnar era. What we saw at Wrestlemania was the end of the Lesnar era. People in the wrestling business would like you to think that the fans who follow news on the internet make up a very small portion of the viewing audience. As we saw on Sunday…We are the damn viewing audience. I said it before and I’ll say it again. Brock Lesnar is nothing but a bitch. He had the easiest damn job in the world and he blew it cause he couldn’t handle the travel schedule. God you would think flying to South Africa on a private jet was just as bad as some Indy wrestler who drives 12 hours just to wrestle in front of a couple hundred people at some school gym. As for the match itself, I liked it. It was a very old school feeling battle of the tough guys which got the ending I saw coming a mile away. Lesnar and Goldberg both taking a stunner to the delight of the crowd. Austin should just stop pretending he can’t wrestle and come back all ready. If his neck and body was as shot as he claims it is, he shouldn’t even be able to do the stunner much less take falls and get hit. The company is in a jam Austin, do the right thing and come back all ready. We need the Texas Rattlesnake back in the ring. If Kurt Angle can wrestle with his neck hanging on by a thread…then so can you.

I’ll get to Angle in a second because before his match was Molly vs. Victoria. With out a doubt the tow best female wrestlers in the country and what was an otherwise good match was tainted with the fact that poor Molly lost and had her head shaved after it. I just couldn’t believe that they did it. I don’t know if it’s just that they can’t book women’s wrestling or that think every feud has to have some sort of stupid catch to it, but I think they went way over the line with shaving her head. Granted it speaks volumes about Molly that she went along with this and she is with out a doubt a team player, but if it was me I would have said there’s no way I’m doing it (Which rumor has it is what Lita said). So now we have the WWE planting signs because the fans are original enough to come with a “Molly is an EGGHEAD” sign or “SHE’S BALD” and Molly is left to used the Kurt Angle gimmick of wrestling in a wig only they exposed her right away instead of waiting a while with Angle. But hey, it’s women’s wrestling. It’s not like anyone cares about it. As long as they sell those Diva’s DVD’s and magazine’s then it’s all good.

After that match we had one of the matches I wanted to see in Eddie Guerrero vs. Kurt Angle. Now the crowd was dead and I mean dead for this match. Some say it’s cause Eddie just isn’t over as we think he is. I contend it’s because the life got sucked out of the crowd while Molly was getting shaved. Either way, this match was great and that’s all that mattered. What really sucks is this could have been Kurt Angle’s swan song as his McGuiver theory to neck problems apparently isn’t working. Of course Kurt wrestling like Kurt didn’t help matters, but either way it appears this was it for the Olympic Hero. But man what a way to go out if it this was it. I don’t care about what other people have said, this is a match of the year candidate. Eddie and Kurt did a great job and the ending was vintage Eddie as he kicked off his boot while in the Ankle lock and managed to roll up Kurt for the win. Of course he had some help from the ring ropes, but like I said it was vintage Eddie and Kurt’s expression was priceless after the match.

After that we had one of the matches everyone wanted to see as Kane took on The Undertaker. Again I marked out for The Undertaker’s entrance. With Paul Barer leading him to the ring (Who by the way signed a contract with the WWE in October and managed to keep it under raps. Who says Kayfabe is dead) he came out looking like he just left the set of a post apocalyptic western. The match it self was exactly was we knew it would be. Kane getting his ass handed to him. That’s what we wanted to see and that’s what we got. The Garden went crazy and despite what others are saying, it was a great sight to see. Who cares if he’s gonna no sell everyone. We wanted The Deadman back and we got him…even if he is a Texas Ranger now.

Finally the one match I was certain would go one way went the other and I am oh so glad it did. Benoit vs. Michaels vs. Triple H was a great match and in the end I had my biggest markout moment ever as I was screaming at the TV “TAP OUT…TAP OUT”. Benoit is now the World Heavyweight Champion and all is right with the WWE…or is it?

As we saw the next night on RAW, Vince finally came to his senses and realized this brand split is not working. According to all the usual sources, the idea for this lottery came over Wrestlemania weekend and most of the company did not find out about till he actually told the world during RAW. While listening to his reasoning as to why they are doing this lottery, I realized something. He’s ripping me off and my company off. Here on the LOP Message Boards I am the Head Booker/Writer of the board’s official E-Fed the PWA. About two months or so ago, our esteemed owner Villiano decided that there were to many people in the company and something needed to be done. So instead of executing the dead weight like I suggested, he devised a draft and we did have an actual live draft and from that we got PWA Schizophrenia and PWA Pyromania. I write the shows for Schizo while another LOP member Mr. Stone writes the shows for Pyromania.

You’re probably wondering what the hell this has to do with what happened on Monday. Well when we did it, we just did it. No reason behind it other then it needed to be done. I was trying for an angle where The Owner Villiano and Commissioner Juncti (Who happened to be the commentators) came to a boiling point and they refused to work with each other because of the direction of the company and that would have been the basis for the split. But thanks to Internet leaks that didn’t happen and everyone broke kayfabe and we just said the hell with it and did a draft. Well as we know with the WWE, Secrets have a way of getting out and Vince kept this one to himself in what appears to be the biggest case of booking on the fly that we will ever see. Wrestlers are pissed that their travel schedules have been changed drastically because of this.

We all can agree the split did not go as good as it should have went. I’m willing to wait to pass judgement on this lottery, but if it ends up being a way to get more BAH GAWD HOSSES on RAW and lord knows all RAW is missing is A-Train and Billy Gunn to fill in the void of Mizark Henry.

Well that is it for this week. Hopefully I shall have a Post-Lottery edition of Wrestling’s Fact or Fiction up sometime by the end of the week, because I’m willing to bet we are going to have a lot to discuss once we know who is on which roster.

Until next time take care, and remember someone has to give you this information so it might as well be me {S Bob Grant

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