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Submitted by Randomguy#5 on Friday, April 28, 2006 at 11:04 PM EST
Hulkamania at Backlash “Fetch me the Spirit, the Son, and the Father-tell them their pillar of faith has ascended." Welcome everybody to the column that believes Albert Pujols should never be thrown a strike again but prays to God he is, The Nosebleed Section. I am your Cardinal red host, Randomguy#5. If you should happen to know the artist to whom that quote at the top is properly attributed, email me and I’ll give you a little plug in the next column. It’s a little snippet from a song I’m very high on at the moment, and represents a throwback to last week’s column regarding God’s role at Backlash. Hopefully you guys enjoyed my little satire piece, and if not, such is life in the entertainment business I suppose. I can’t hope to please all of you goons out there in Eworld, I can just hope entertain you for a few minutes in between wrestling shows. A word of advice however: we strongly recommend that you consume a high volume of alcohol before ingesting The Nosebleed Section, so as to make the experience much more enjoyable. --I hate the idea of calling Rey Mysterio an “underdog champion.” Is it just me or does it seem like we’re preparing the crowd for a fall, by convincing them that Rey shouldn’t be where he is, as opposed to focusing their energies on portraying Rey as a creditable champion in spite of his size rather than using it as a crutch before he’s even lost the title? Lame. --Man something seems amiss to me about this whole ECW comeback business. This could be a really great success or a fairly catastrophic disaster. In the next week or two, I’m hoping to write a column about my thoughts on this as they’re a bit too scattered at the moment to put into words, but needless to say, I am intrigued and very excited about the prospects of this. More in coming issues. --I would like to tell you that I greatly enjoyed Smackdown this week, but honestly any show that involves both Kahli and Mark Henry struggles to hold my attention, especially when Henry is in multiple segments and sucks the life out of the 30+ minutes of the show with his sweat flinging ass and condom tight singlet. --Impact’s move to Thursday nights has been a great success in my mind. The energy of the show has picked up, and I actually look forward to Thursday nights now, and Spike TV’s “Thursday Night Knock Outs”. While I’m thinking about it, I love the UFC and am contemplating doing a couple columns, either in the Lop Forums, or over at The Project. Anybody interested? Two years ago, a buddy of mine, henceforth referred to as Pudge, decided that we needed to attend the April WWE PPV, Backlash being held in Kansas City, which is only about 2 ½ hrs from where I live. Lucky for us, his mom had forgotten his birthday the previous year, (not really, but sort of, it’s weird) and she sprang for the tickets, on the floor six rows back. Given that Backlash is this Sunday, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at that show two years ago. Since I have a copy of the tape of the event, it’ll be easier to look at the show, tell you what happened, and what we thought at the time. I hope this doesn’t sound like a review, so I won’t rate matches or anything. Sometimes its fun to take a kick a little retro wrestling. So everybody jump in their way-back machine… Backlash ‘02 After spending a few minutes trying to find our seats, and feuding with the security over rather or not we should have been on the floor, we finally got to our seats. It took us about two seconds to realize that our seats, six rows back as I mentioned, were close enough to be cool, but not close enough to really see much. The guys we sat next too were already drinking, but extremely cool and introduced themselves. I have no idea what their names were, so we’ll call them red hat guy and black shirt guy. The heat matches were forgettable, expect for Big Show’s squash of somebody who I can’t remember. I just remember thinking that being that close, Show looked a whole hell of a lot bigger than I thought he was. You can hear his measurements all Styles wants to scream, but seriously, he’s huge man. The ring always looks smaller in real life, and when you put Show in, he looks like a great big fat kid in a little bit sand box. Those hook things that kinda look like sickles that they use for the Backlash set are cool as hell to see live. Just thought I’d throw that in. Odd to note also that JR and King were doing the announcing, even for the Smackdown matches. Pre-show, most of the talk in the audience was about the Brand Extension and rather or not it would work or was working. This was the first PPV since the split, and it was a very hot topic at the time. After the opening pyro’s went off, the screen showed footage of WWF New York. Whatever happened to that thing? Tajiri v Billy Kidman, Cruiserweight Championship This was a damn fine curtain puller looking back on it. They really did a fair job of getting the crowd worked up early. Tajiri came out with Torrie Wilson, dressed in some Geisha Gown thing. This was during Tajiri’s first major run as a heel with the WWF, so he was catching heat. Funny, he’s gone face, heel again, face again, heel again, face again and left the company since then. There were a lot of Chants for Torrie early on, and I’m glad I didn’t have to hear King live, because he never shut up about covering Torrie’s puppies. The match itself was solid and I remember thinking at the time that it would be nice to see what Smackdown did with the Cruiserweight division, which was starting to gain some momentum. Tajiri’s kicks were really stiff that night, and the way he kept yelling “Shut up!” at the crowd in his little Asian accent was really hysterical. After Kidman missed the Shooting Star press, Tajiri hit the executioner kick finisher, but Kidman kicked out. That should have killed Billy boy, as Tajiri really controlled almost this entire match. I bet he kicked Kidman in the head 20 times. Kidman went for a power bomb and got a face full of red mist, as Tajiri won. After the match, he drug around Torrie for a while, and yelled at Cole trying to get an interview in some Japanese tongue. Great match. Backstage segment with Faarooq and Bradshaw meeting up for the first time since the split. This was Bradshaw’s first big singles push. The crowd popped, I guess the APA wasn’t stale as hell just yet. If you’d have told me or anybody present that night that the beer gutted, black haired Bradshaw was going to get a makeover and hold the WWE title for 10 months, I’d have shat horns and worshiped your bullshit. Scott Hall w/X-pac v Bradshaw What was up with the N.W.O. music, I’ll never now. It was something different than I remember. Nash was “suspended without pay” I think rehabbing a torn bicep but can’t remember. X-pac entered wearing Kane’s mask, since Kane was hurt at the hands of the N.w.o. Whatever happened to that angle? It took about two seconds before the APA music hit again, and Faarooq came down to even the odds to a massive crowd pop and hug from Bradshaw. APA chants rang out throughout the match, people were sick of the brand split already. I remember one guy telling me why we were there, “Ah, they’ll get tired of it in a couple months” Yeah, ok. Funny how Hall went from Austin at ‘Mania to Bradshaw a month later. It seemed like such a demotion at the time, but perhaps today it would be a move up the card. I noticed looking back on the tape, that the “intangibles” from Hall were really good, the taunts and mannerisms. Too bad I hated everything about him and was actually marking out and pulling for Bradshaw. Obviously the match was pretty damn basic. X-Pac screwed Bradshaw after the Clothesline from Hell, and after distracting him again, got a beating from big Ron Simmons. Scott Hall won off the low-blow rollup combination. Really shitty match, the highlight of “pre Eddie” Bradshaw though I suspect. A backstage segment with Ric Flair “owner” of Raw and Arn Anderson being interrupted by Vince “owner” of Smackdown. The crowd desperately tried to get the chant from The Rock going of “You Are” on one side of the arena, with “An Asshole” going on the other. That chant was just too complicated to work without someone leading it. Flair says “I’ll never be like Vince McMahon” to which Vince offers a handshake and says “Maybe not. But you could try?” Priceless. Trish v Jazz, Women’s title All the talk on the floor of Kemper Arena was how much bigger Trish’s boobs looked in person. Sorry, had to mention that. Molly interrupted before Jazz’s intro, screaming something about being a “pure and virtuous” champion before attacking Trish. Once the match started it was pretty much the same match they’ve had for years, except the Stratosphere leg move in the corner was much newer at the time and the crowd loved it. Jazz hit a decent sit down power bomb. She won on a very shit STF after a long period of rest holds. Looking back now, I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen that whole “Chapmion retains with an STF which they’d never previously used and doesn’t really fit their persona” bit somewhere before, but I can’t put my finger on where I’ve seen that lately. Some guy I don’t know did a post match interview, to which Jazz said nothing. What’s with the interview idea anyway? Next, footage was shown of Paul Heyman running through Lita’s thongs, trying to get laid if he tells Brock to play nice with Matt Hardy. She didn’t. He didn’t. Matt got hurt, and Jeff was in his place. Backstage, Heyman tries to pump up Brock for his first official PPV match. Brock spent a lot of time smiling, and breathing heavy while looking at the ceiling. Jeff Hardy w/ Lita v “The Next Big Thing” Brock Lesnar w/Paul Heyman Jeff got a huge pop as he and Lita came out together. Lita really wasn’t doing the team extreme bit, and spent most of the match with her arms crossed, holding her neck with one hand. We later learned it was broken, and she had surgery that week. Watching the film, you can see her in ring, wince in pain when Jeff jumped down off the turnbuckle and the ring bounced. Lesnar’s music sucked. Maybe I’m making that up, but that’s what I saw. Ha, that’s funny, the referee was Teddy Long. Ah, the good old days. The crowd was hot as hell for this match, because most everyone still loved Jeff, and everyone was in awe of Lesnar. He hit several amazing release belly-belly suplexes. A few mild chants rang out, including us, of “speak Brock speak” because the WWE wasn’t letting him say a word yet because he sounded like a girl. Jeff had a flurry of offense about mid match, in which Brock looked like a guy from the old “Punch Out” game on Nintendo 8bit, trying to sell all of Jeff’s punches, and doing it like he was being shot, jumping backward after every one. Jeff hit a couple of moves, and culminated his flurry with the Swanton Bomb, which Brock promptly kicked out of. We knew then it was all over. Amidst Paul screaming, “Show them! Don’t pin him, hurt him! Show them!” Brock went crazy, with multiple suplexes, then the F-5, for which the crowd went crazy for, all on their feet. Brock hit the multiple power bomb, multiple rip breaker moves, and Teddy Long stopped the match after a spinning power bomb from hell. We were actually in awe of the guy, and there were no “Goldberg” chants that night. Kurt Angle v Edge This was the match that many people say started Edge’s climb into stardom. Watching this match live, and again on tape, its no wonder Angle has neck problems because there was an incredible amount of Suplexes by both men, including one belly to belly that got botched and should have killed Kurt, who still had hair at this point. I guess the hair saved his neck. After Angle controlled most of the match, Edge kicked out of the Angle slam, and the crowd went crazy. After spending a while in the Ankle lock, Kurt got frustrated and went for a chair. Edge ducked the chair shot, and Kurt got the now common, “slingshot off the top rope move” and got the chair upside his own head. Edge hit the Edgeacution, Angle kicked out. Edge went for a spear and got a face full of boot, right into the Angle slam, thanks for coming, 1,2,3. I seem to remember it being better in person, probably because of the “Angle sucks” or “Angle rocks” banter with the guy next to me. Or the popping for the hundred suplexes. Either way, not a bad match. Next, Jericho came down to the ring, amidst a bunch of boos and one random guy chanting Y2J because he’s Jericho mark. He was still on Smackdown at this point, and had a right to bitch, I can’t believe he didn’t have a match having just dropped the Undisputed Title to Trips a month before. Odd that he called WM 18 the biggest show in history. Don’t they say that after every Wrestlemania? Calling Hogan a “has BEAN” was hilarious, he did one hell of a job working the crowd. Rob Van Dam v Eddie Guerrero, Intercontinental Title This match was obviously a high spot on the card, and watching it again makes me miss the deceassed Eddie and feel a sense of excitement for the new push of RVD. The match was solid, but really nothing stood out to me. Eddie spent a lot of time working the lower back of Rob, including one of the coolest surfboard looking submission moves I’ve ever seen, that really got the crowd going. For us, the match was all about the mullet. We were screaming mullet chants, because mullets rule, and finally the two rows that were actually chanting got Eddie to look right at us and give a cool little look. You can see his reaction and hear us pop for it on tape. Generally, the match was really spotty, but the spots were good, including a badass sunset flip power bomb off the turnbuckle. Eddie hit a neck breaker onto the title belt, which makes no sense, and won off the frog splash. Solid ending, good match. Undertaker v Stone Cold Steve Austin, #1 contenders match, special Referee Ric Flair I still have no idea what music Flair was coming out to those days, but its really funny to look back at the tape and hear “Raw owner Ric Flair.” He got a massive pop, and the four of us sitting there were hell bent on getting a “Flair’s red boots” chant started, but it didn’t catch. I don’t understand, why not? This was right in the middle of the “What?!” craze, and believe me it was in full swing that night. Everything Austin did got a “What” pop. I still haven’t decided if I like that chant or not. The intangibles for these two are amazing. The first ten minutes of the match was basically all taunts, but the crowd was fairly hot for it. The test of strength, which turned into Austin flipping the bird was classic, and since Taker was hell bent on boxing Austin, Austin kept checking his watch, and at one point even did pushups because he was bored. Great stuff really, that kind of thing can always work to hide ring inadequacies. Not that they had many, but still. Ric Flair’s count still kills me. It’s slower than Eugene. The match started off with a lot of decent mat stuff, which I was surprised to see from them two, but eventually spilled to the outside and started to lose the crowds interest. I was pissed as hell, because most of the brawling took place on the opposite side, where we couldn’t see shit and ended up watching the jumbo-torn. The N.W.O., or rather, Hall and X-pac came down and watched the match about halfway through, but eventually just left. I don’t recall there being a program with them or either wrestler, before or after the match, so to this day I have no idea why that happened. It was really funny, because somebody threw a chunk of trash of some kind and busted Scott Hall right in the head. Too bad that didn’t make it to TV. Every time there was a two count, Taker would threaten Flair with “Wrestlemania Moments” from their match the month before when ‘Taker beat the hell out him. That was a fun little thing. I think Benoit needs to threaten HHH with “Wrestlemania moments.” The match really slowed down, and Flair eventually took a “ref bump of doom” which makes no sense. How does a 16-time world champion get killed by a shoulder bump? Right, suspend disbelief, suspend disbelief. The bump cost Austin the win after hitting the Stunner. Flair would get bumped a few more times, and there was a great deal of chair interaction. The match eventually ended with Austin using the chair and getting it booted into his face. Austin had his foot in the ropes, which flair didn’t see, and counted, giving ‘Taker the win. This match was much better on TV than live, but still fairly disappointing I thought. Post match, there was another Stunner for ‘Taker, and much beer drinking. Post match, backstage, Coach shows Flair the footage, and asks Ric what he had to say about his mistake. His answer: “Oh Shit” Billy and Chuck w/ Rico v Al Snow and Maven, Tag Team titles. B-double E-double R- U - N. I have no idea why this match was even on the card as I thought it was dreadful then, and still do now. The highlight was the Rico’s gay chant, and Maven’s music, which is cool. At one point, Rico gets run off into the crowd and came within about 2 inches of Pudge. Pudge bumped into him, and Rico did the silly little hand slap away thing. I told him he should have laid Rico out. After some Rico interference, Billy and Chuck retained after a Chuck super kick. Waist of time. Hulk Hogan v Triple H, Undisputed Championship. A film clip was shown before the match of the feud. Hogan’s line “if the crowd thinks I deserve a shot, then brother, I’m gonna take it.” made the crowd heat up. Believe me, they thought he deserved a shot. Pudge hates Hogan. Just thought I’d point that out. No reason. The crowd sign that said Hogan drinks Ensure was funny. Both HHH and Hogan got massive pops for their entrances, I must say “Voodoo Child” has a strange effect on people. Triple H spit water. Grr. Oh, wait, he’s still face for this match, “yeah”. I loved HHH at the time. The early goings had a lot of back and forth action, with an awesome test of strength sequence. It was really built on HHH being able to out power Hogan, which is a cardinal sin, but the Hulkamanicacs weren’t having it. HHH gains momentum with a slap to the face that according to JR, took out the Hulkamanicacs. No it didn’t, but whatever. Hogan hit something that JR called a Diamond Cutter type move. Throwback to WCW, that doesn’t happen often. Was DDP still in the company at this point? The match seen HHH work the knee of Hogan for the most part, but both men hit most of their trademark moves. Hogan hit a leg drop out of nowhere, and then shit got a little fuzzy. Jericho ran in for the breakup, because he didn’t like Hogan and thought he deserved that title shot. After a ref bump, Jericho took out Hogan with a chair, only to get smacked around by a face HHH who didn’t want Jericho’s help. After this, Hogan hits all of his classic stuff with the hulking up and punches and such, but HHH rolled out of the way of the leg drop. Hogan wanders into the Pedigree, only to see ‘Taker come out and break it up after a ref bump, because he doesn’t want to face HHH. Hogan runs off Taker, and then hit’s a random leg drop from nowhere. Game over. The crowd all goes berserk for the return of Hulkamania. HHH shakes violently to show his anger, still bloody from the Taker chair shot. He offers Hogan his hand, and then goes away angry as the crowd worships Hogan. After the camera went off air, HHH came back out and had a pose down with Hogan as we all listened to Hogan’s music 587 times. Children screamed, old men rejoiced, the women wept. It was a beautiful thing. Pudge and I took our Backlash chairs that we got to keep; either that or we stole them, and went on the 2-½ hour drive back home. I went to one class the next day, and then we drove 1 ½ hours to St. Louis for Raw the next night, where Big Show swerved and joined the N.W.O. Tuesday, I couldn’t speak, or go “WHOO,” it sucked. Needless to say it was a fun couple of days, and to be there for Hogan’s last title win was something special, rather you like Hogan or not. The rest of the card was decent, but that stands out. That, and Rico slapping Pudge. Should have hit him. Sanctimonious Son of a Bitch MARK FUCKIN HENRY! How many great main events do you need to ruin!? How many times can you do the same two moves! Again with the fat-flop-splash, again with the “silent sell” from Cole, again with absolutely ridiculous, obscene abuse of audiences! Keep him around the main event, and I hope the SD rating plummets through the fucking floor. How many times must I tell you dumbasses to get him off my TV! Fuck! Cannon Fodder The poor, underestimated, abused and neglected Smackdown audience who are repeatedly taken advantage of by the jackasses who can’t decide how to use the talent on the roster. Mark Fucking Henry again… Cheap Pop Quote Googling legend RipBossman correctly identified last week‘s quote and has such earned himself a cheap pop for this week. Sadly it‘s been a while since Ripper has written a column and thus I have nothing to plug. When he gets around to it however, it can be found in the Lop Columns Forum along with the work of several other potential Lop main page writers. Stop in and show them some love, they’ll appreciate it, and I appreciate your playing along Rip. Muchos Gracias. Random Acts of Wrestling The following list are what myself and readers of The Nosebleed Section determine to be the ten biggest stories in wrestling over the last two weeks. Please help continue this section by submitting your top ten lists by emailing me. 10) Vince vs. HBK Still on the list, but getting old fast. This feud is on life-support as what was once a decent little feud is getting cheesy in a hurry. 9) TNA’s Stable Warfare Similar circumstances as the Vince vs. Shawn feud, as its quickly approaching its “stale” threshold. The stable warfare side seems to be breaking down in favor of Jarrett/Steiner vs. Sting/??? Which I suppose is a good thing as it frees up AMW. Interesting spoilers kicking around however regarding who Sting’s partner will be. 8) WWE has a cup of Tea I always enjoy it when the WWE brings Raw or Smackdown television to foreign markets. The energy seems to ratchet up a notch, the crowds are always hot and you never know how they’ll react to things. I wonder how come they never go to Mexico City? 7) Carlito’s Face Turn I’m pro-Carlito as a face, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s going face simply because nobody’s sure what to do with him as a heel. The WWE is developing a nasty habit of developing entertaining heels, turning them face, and then stopping whatever they were doing to get them over in the first place. I hold some reservations about this. 6) MNM vs. The Rockers 2k6 Melina is the apple of eye when my eyes aren’t looking above the neck. This feud has built very well, the dysfunction in MNM brewing makes it a bit more compelling, and we just aren’t going to get tired of Kendrick and London for a while as its rare that we see this type of wrestling very often. Kudos to all involved with this one, I’m enjoying this feud a great deal. 5) Abyss vs. Christian Great, great stuff over on TNA. As I said, the move to Thursdays has been a great thing for them, and Abyss (with Sinister Minister) has really taken off, but I still don’t like the manner in which 4) Triple H’s fake face turn Oh baby is this little development going places. In the course of two matches and one promo, Triple H has put a completely fresh spin on his character, and will no doubt be ascending to the top of Raw with it shortly. A fun loving, ‘tweener H with a pronounced mean streak never fails to entertain me, so its something I’m looking forward to very much. The DX overtones are of course, fun to think about. 3) World Champ Rey-Rey People are starting to get comfortable with this idea, and if Cole would quit referring to his reign as a “miracle” somebody might be inclined to believe Rey as a champion. A clean win over Angle would have been nice following a phenomenal match, but no, because Mark Fucking Henry had to throw his stank filled dreadlocks into the match. 2) ECW Well lets just go ahead and get the hype started now, huh? The big PPV coming up with a rumor of RVD headlining, a rumored full time return of some sort of ECW programming that has been met with mixed reviews, and a multitude of other topics being discussed, all of which lead back to the little federation that couldn’t. I’m still withholding further comments for future column. 1) Cena’s Mixed Reaction This to me is still the most compelling thing in wrestling right now. The manner in which its being handled, to me, is brilliant. They’re riding it out, without a full blown heel turn. Yet, it appears as though maybe, he’s going to begin acknowledging it even more. He needs more edginess in his character, but it’s a thin line to walk, and is something that is extremely interesting to watch unfold. Well that about wraps it up for this edition of the ‘Bleeder. I must confess that the main portion of this column I had taken from a column I did about two years ago (issue #24 I think). I thought it was suiting, given the timing of this posting, and I hope you enjoyed it. Before I skip outta here, I do want to give you a little one paragraph prediction run down for Backlash this Sunday. --Cena retains and goes on to face RVD at the ECW PPV. --Shawn Michaels picks up the win due to some excessive pyro, and perhaps some interference by Modnar Sidog. --Rob Van Dam goes over Shelton Benjamin. --Kane over the Big Show, probably as a result of some Violent weapon use. DQ is a possibility. --Mickie James retains the Title, and we all hold our breath to see what this feud does next or if it actually ends. --Carlito over Chris Masters, though Masters winning and continuing the feud is a real possibility. --Umaga over Ric Flair somehow. And that’s all I’ve got for today, as this column has gone on almost as long as the eternal main event push of Mark Henry. I’m gonna do what WWE can’t and pull the plug on something before you all come to hate me and change the channel, no doubt getting stuck with some hodgepodge of column by Morpheus who can’t seem to write his own columns these days. Come now Morph, you’re a big boy you can handle it. Thanks for visiting The Nosebleed Section-but next time, get better seats. Send‘Em Feedback, Make your Local Random Happy  Music Downloads, the on-going Tournament of Rock, and some great creative writing pieces. New material coming later this week, but if you’ve never been there, its all new to you right?  If you dig hard rock or perhaps a bit of metal in your music, why not have a listen to Project Radio? It’s a free internet radio station owned and operated by yours truly featuring Metallica, Tool, Disturbed, System of a Down and a host of indie rock artists like Wombraider and Illusoria. Give it a listen and let me know what you think. *NEW GALLERY* Must See! McMahon FAMILY PHOTOS! Shane's Wife & More! Very Rare!
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