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Submitted by Randomguy#5 on Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 1:20 AM EST
Welcome back to the column that Howard Stern doesn’t care for The Nosebleed Section. I am one of those idiots that still watches wrestling, Randomguy#5 and this is my little slice of Internet Pie. Something tells me a majority of the global population, when given a few twenty second clips, would ponder why in the hell anybody still listens to Howard Stern, too. Seriously, gotta love how he rips on people who “still” watch wrestling when he himself hasn’t done anything notable in ten years either. Though, for what it’s worth, Rosie vs. Donald was absolutely horrendous and I’m proud that St. Louis booed the holy shit out of it, complete with “We Want Wrestlers” and “TNA” chants. Well done. Before I get too far involved with today’s column, I want to take a few moments to thank everybody who downloaded the Special Editions of Monday Night Countdown. The “premium” editions of the show came out last week in the form of two special editions. The first was a nearly three hour Year-In-Review show that discussed nearly every important topic from the year in wrestling, a special edition of “Three Things That Suck” featuring the suckiest happenings from 2006, all in the familiar Countdown format we’ve used for every episode thus far. The second special edition was a the very fun to produce “Mencee Awards” (the sound you get when you try and pronounce MNC). It’s produced to sound like an awards show and features some very special “guests”. I do want to clarify a misunderstanding of sorts and say that Monday Night Countdown is absolutely not going to a pay-per-listen format for every episode. Some people drew that conclusion and I’m sorry if I didn’t explain that clearly in previous columns and episodes. We are simply going to offer these from time to time and will always strive to the best of our ability to assure that if we’re going to charge for our work, you will find it well worth your money. Those who have downloaded the shows thus far have assured me that these are indeed well worth the $3 per episode or $5 for the two show package edition featuring both the Year End Review, the Mencee awards and a free copy of our latest Blooper Reel. You can read some testimonials at the end of the column or Click Here to visit our MNC Homepage and order the shows . Also, if you’d like to preview the shows before you purchase them, I’ve mixed together a couple of preview files, one for each show. They’re about two minutes a piece and should provide you with a pretty good sample of what to expect for your five bucks, should you still be deciding whether or not to purchase them. Mencee Awards Show Preview 2006 Year In Review Preview Ok, that’s enough shameless self promotion and I do apologize for it. Morph and I will be back either this weekend or next with a new totally free edition of Monday Night Countdown and I have no plans of stopping the show anytime in 2007. I do owe a great deal of gratitude to Lop’s webmaster Calvin, and to Roomate Shropy and Morpheus for their co-hosting efforts. Mostly I owe a Nosebleed Sized “Thank You” to all of the fans of the show that have watched it grow over the course of the last nine months. Trust me, it’s only going to get bigger and better from here, starting with the enclosures that you’re all begging for to put the thing on iTunes. Many thanks. And finally, onto the column! --I never thought I’d be able to say this but watching the Great Kahli makes me yern for the return of Mark Henry. I understand the push, I really to. The guy’s fucking massive and wrestling has always been something of a circus where abnormal humans do abnormal things and people gawk. And I understand that as long as people hate Kahli people will cheer Cena and line up to boo him and pay to see him get his ass beat. Yet if there was ever a case of “bad heat” Kahli is it. I’m as loyal a WWE guy as you’ll ever find, and I got up from my couch and walked in the other room in disgust when he came on Raw Monday Night. --Which, in case you’re wondering means I’d have flipped the channel to check out what TNA Impact had on given the opportunity. Apparently later this month, I’m going to have that opportunity as Raw is being preempted due to a fucking dog show, and will be airing on Thursday night opposite Impact. I hope TNA plans something huge for that night, as the ratings should be a great barometer of where the two companies are at from a competitive standpoint. Should be even more interesting when/if they get the rumored second hour that is currently being negotiated with Spike TV. --I love my girlfriend but I’d cut off my right arm for one night with Maria. --Thanks to an ice storm my plans for Friday night were cancelled and for the second time in about a month I was able to catch Smackdown and I have to say I enjoyed it immensely. In fact, I dare say the episode owned. Intresting concept they have over there by, gee what was it, having matches! Match after match they paraded out including a twenty minute marathon that was absolutely awesome between Kennedy and Benoit. It’s been a while since I could say it, but Raw really could use to take a number of pointers from Smackdown at this point. The first of which would be, have competitive looking matches, and a lot more of them! --This was in large part due to the Smackdown Sprint which was quite entertaining. Batista’s backstage interview segment was simply fantastic as it essentially set up two main events at the same time. First, he gave props to Kennedy and set the stage for what should be a very good World Title match at Royal Rumble. Secondly, his hesitation when discussing The Undertaker before pausing for a deep breath and saying “..well that would be a first” was just awesome and had me actually pulling against my boy Kennedy for a bit. Hopefully the WWE goes forward now with the rumors of ‘Taker vs. Batista at Wrestlemania, as the groundwork for that has been laid now beautifully. Ideally I’d like to see ‘Taker win the Rumble (which he’s never done) and go on to beat Batista for one final Title run before hanging it up. I fear however, that Dave will be the one to end ‘Taker’s Mania streak, though I still have my doubts on that one. What if Kennedy ends it, perhaps in a Triple Threat at ‘Mania? --I know people will think me crazy for this but Joey Mercury looked ten times as cool with the mask than he ever did without. Something about the flashy pants and pretty six-pack abs combined with the Hanibal Lecter-esque mask and black dreadlocks just screams “tormented soul” character that could be really, really entertaining. It’s either that or he gets tossed into career limbo as he tries to find a new character as it’s evident that the WWE wants Melina and Nitro on their own after Wrestlemania. Of course, they could just leave him be, and leave him looking like he did after his Armageddon encounter with a Jeff Hardy propelled ladder….  While I can remember growing up watching wrestling with my dad, my family moved when I was eleven years old into a region of the state where cable television wasn’t readily available. Looking back on it, the move was a great change for my family but it did mean that I didn’t see much wrestling for about six years. During my junior year of high school, one of the local TV channels began carrying Smackdown (which they hadn’t previously) and aired it at 2:00 P.M. on Saturday afternoons. This was ideal as I worked Saturday afternoons and would get home cold and dog-ass tired about 2:30. One day while feeling particularly ill and exhausted I curled up on the couch like a small child, I stumbled across Smackdown and it immediately had my attention, thanks in large part to a long haired blond guy filled with energy calling himself “The Ayatollah of Rock ‘N Rolla” and telling people to “Shut…THE HELL…UP!” I was a Chris Jericho mark from that moment on. Recently it was reported that Vince McMahon is now “bringing up” the name Chris Jericho during meetings regarding possibilities for Wrestlemania 23. People all across the IWC have varying opinions of Jericho ranging from awesome to suck. My personal take on the guy, is that he was very rarely used properly in the WWE which is a shame given that I consider him one of the few “total package” guys in the WWE. He has the charisma, mic skills, and wrestling abilities to be a main event player and for whatever reason the WWE simply lacked the faith to push him long at that level. Skeptics will disagree with this statement and point out that he defeated Austin and The Rock in the same night and became the first ever Undisputed Champion which certainly is not indicative of a wrestler lacking a push. Jericho haters will tell you “he did nothing with the monster push he had, why should he be given another?” Going in to Wrestlemania 18 Jericho was uber-over as a hated heel champion and unfortunately got caught up in the divorce storyline between Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. That is career cancer for anybody, because as great as that storyline was no heel champion should have been wrapped up in it. It would have been far easier to carry out that very entertaining storyline before or after ‘Mania while keeping Jericho and Triple H away from each other, or else have Trips take the belt off Jericho and then divorce Steph. As it was, the awkward booking of trying to carry out all the storylines at once left little for Jericho to do. That’s only one theory of course, the other being that Trips quite simply squashed him and pedigreed him back to the midcard. Upon losing the title Jericho wasn’t even granted any sort of real rematch, as the newly turned babyface Hulk Hogan went on to mainevent Backlash with HHH and eventually win the title. That’s a lot of “stuff” for any new main eventer to try and wade through, even the mighty Chris Jericho. The sudden burst of storylines that were simply more prominent than Jericho sent him into a bit of a tailspin as his character had largely been built on being the greatest ever, so when he clearly wasn’t, he slipped into character purgatory and stayed there for a good while. He eventually regained his footing and went on to lead a few very strong years in the Raw midcard including memorable feuds with Christian, the infamous Christian/Jericho/Lita/Trish storyline, and a fantastic feud with HBK, all while putting over a number of wrestlers on their way to the top. Jericho gracefully made his exit a year and half ago at SummerSlam 2005 by doing what exactly what he’d been asked to do for three years: put over guys on their way to bigger things. When John Cena came to Raw it appeared as though Christian was going to get a long deserved main event push and when that fell through Jericho stepped in to put the pieces together in an awkwardly booked situation and serve as Cena’s first major win as a member of the Raw roster. He left kicking and screaming on screen, but we all know that he was leaving on his own accord to pursue other ventures including acting (which we’ve yet to see) and further his band Fozzy’s career. (For the record, while I don’t think they’re anything extraordinary, I enjoy Fozzy’s music). My god how I can’t help but salivate at the thought of a Jericho return to the WWE. The guy has paid his dues, gotten a run at the top, failed (no matter who’s fault it was) and paid his dues again. Jericho wrestles a style that is adaptive to any style in any match and while I fear the WWE would just be bringing him in to help put over Chris Masters, Umaga, and/or Kenny Dykstra, how awesome would it be if he really was brought in to ascend to a solid main event level in the absence of Triple H? Speaking of it’s a crying shame what’s happened to The Game. I’m not going to be like the other duchebags of the world and try and speculate regarding H’s physical conditioning or presume for a second that some “supplements” of some kind have led to weakened muscles, tendons or joints. Quite simply I don’t know enough about kinesiology to comment on it, though I admit it’s a tad sketchy to see what seems to be a fairly uncommon injury happen to Triple H so often over the course of his career. People love to hate on that guy. They line up like fatkids in a free cake line to piss and moan about how he uses political stroke to better his own spot on the card and you know what? Yeah, he probably does. But those people are a bit ignorant of the political gamesmanship that is played in every place of business. And yes, I agree, the way things went down in 2002 when Hunter squashed everybody on the Raw roster not named HBK including Jericho, RVD, Kane, Steiner and a plethora of others. But for Christ’s sake kids that was five years ago now. Since then Trips has put people over at THREE STRAIGHT Wrestlemania’s including two of them by tap-out to Benoit and Cena. In addition, he gave up his Hell in a Cell streak (to Batista, who beat Trips three straight times) and if you recall lost the biggest upset I’d ever seen the night Shelton Benjamin debuted on Raw. As quite simply the ONLY main event performer left over from the legendary “Attitude Era” of wrestling, Triple H represents the biggest and most recognizable name amongst names in sports-entertainment today, not to mention a damned entertaining performer. I’ve got to think at this point that he was slated to win a much deserved main event title match at Wrestlemania. And really that’s what this is all about isn’t it? We’ve known for quite sometime that Raw’s main event was starting to grow a little thin but it was easy to simply not notice because for two years nearly every serious main event feud has involved either John Cena or Triple H, if not both. Now that Cena is running out of opponents and Trips has gone and injured himself yet again, the scene suddenly looks to be in dire straits. It’s not a complete train wreck at this point, though if Kahli and an extended Cena/Umaga feud is the only stop-gap the WWE has it may be worse than it would seem at first glance. Looking ahead, I still think the easiest and most practical plan for the WWE Title match is Orton vs. Cena but that’s just not a match I think wrestling fans care about at this point. There is little doubt in anybody’s mind that Orton and Cena are two of the guys the WWE is counting on for future main events, but the timing just doesn’t feel right on that one. It would be a make or break moment for them both, and I think that feud would best be served at a lesser stage than what the Heavyweight Title from Raw will draw, that being THE main-event as the final match on the Wrestlemania card, a position that belt has held for a few years running now. If not Orton then I suppose there is still the distinct possibility of a multi-man main event matchup for the WWE Title. Likely this match could would involve Cena, Edge, Orton (the friction between RatedRKO leading up to the show could be good) and either Umaga or HBK. I wouldn’t even be terribly surprised to see some sort of a gimmick thrown in, though I’m not entirely certain what this would be right now. I know this sort of booking isn’t what the WWE typically likes to do for ‘Mania, but I think it’s a very strong possibility given that for the first time Smackdown could have the main event in Batista vs. The Undertaker. Which brings up an interesting possibility in and of itself. I’m of the belief that one of the few marquee matchups the WWE has yet to pull, or perhaps it’s simply indicative of the only true two main-eventers the WWE’s built in recent years, is Batista vs. Cena. This could reasonably happen though it would almost certainly require Batista to drop the title by then. The other sexy option here is a heel turn for Cena and feud with The Undertaker, who opts for Cena and Raw after winning the Rumble. That’s the one I’m pulling for, though I think the multi-man clusterfuck is likely what will happen. Lastly there are all of those tantalizing options I talked about at the beginning of the column. A move to resign Chris Jericho and assigning him to the main event scene of Raw is potentially blockbuster for the WWE, for all of the reasons I’ve mentioned already. As J.R. recently commented in his blog, Stone Cold Steve Austin has a new movie slated to come out April 27th so one would think that he will have a significant role at Wrestlemania, though who really knows what that means at this point. All we’ve heard for years now is that Austin’s neck is done and that at most he has only one or two more matches in him if any at all. Seems I once heard the same thing after a career ending back injury to Shawn Michaels, and four years later I watched him tear the house down with Triple H in a Three Stages of Hell match, and that guy hasn’t looked back since. Foley’s a name getting kicked around, but I can’t come up with much in my head that would justify a Cena/Foley feud so quickly and he’d be more likely to get wrapped up with Vince or Shane McMahon. Lesnar is a long shot at best, though the storyline all but writes itself. All of you Goldberg marks need to get over it, that ain’t happening. Whether it’s a sexy new free agent signing, a stunning heel swerve (HBK?), an inter-brand mega-match, or a multi-man orgy of violence, the WWE needs to pull something out of their bag of tricks to salvage what is looking to be a dismal main event from their flagship show and Wrestlemania 23. Of course, I’m still hoping for the biggest “trick” of them all, when Vince hypes a mystery opponent for Cena at Wrestlemania and speculation runs rampant that its Jericho. Suddenly the big night comes on April Fool’s Day Joke when Wrestlemania kicks off on April 1st and the D-X music hits. The crowd pops for HBK only to build into a frenzy when the DX music cuts off into Motorhead’s “The Game” and out comes Triple H in what proves to be the single greatest April Fool’s Day joke in the history of mankind. Meh, a guy can dream. After all, it’s what we Jericholoics do. Sanctimonious Son of a Bitch Mr. Kennedy. owns. Period. There’s just no other way to say it, the guy is the picture perfect example of what a modern day heel should be. He’s got an above average moveset and he sells very well, his mic skills are already amongst the top ten in the company, and he’s funny while still remaining heel by using all the typical heel antics like riding down the home crowd and doing the opposite of what the crowd wants at any given moment. This guy is awesomely bad. Cannon Fodder Is there anybody out there who can explain to me why in the holy hell Hardcore Holly won cleanly over CM Punk? Last I thought Punk was undefeated but I suppose that since neither Styles nor Tazz nor the other fucktard who does commentary with them mentioned it perhaps I’m wrong. Even still, I truly can’t fathom how Holly offers more upside than Punk at this point, or why the “he can’t make me tap” storyline would seemingly be dropped so quickly. After Kahli on Raw and ECW, and the Donald vs. Rosie match, it had been a truly shitty week of wrestling up to this point having watched Sparkplug Bob somehow defeat the guy who I thought the WWE was going to hang their ECW hat on. Seriously, this was just asinine to me and if there’s some backstage reason why I’d really like to know. Cheap Pop I almost never feel compelled to hype a legitimate wrestling PPV but this Sunday’s TNA PPV Final Resolution may finally be enough to get my cheap ass roommate to break his streak of not ordering PPV’s. The little swerve with Abyss realigning with James Mitchell this week added some compelling components to the Title match between Abyss, Christian and Sting while Rhino vs. AJ Styles in a last man standing match could potentially steal the show. Jerry Lynn vs. Chris Sabin vs. Christopher Daniels for the X-Division title should be a great “spot monkey” show (credit: Boss Foxx). Of course the big money is match is Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle should be an early Match of the Year candidate for 2007 and anything less will be something of a disappointment. All ‘ye haters best recognize and get off your cheap asses, open up your fat wallets, because this Sunday might be the perfect time to get on the TNA train. And so ends another heartfelt edition of the Bleeder. Feedback is kinda like sex, it doesn’t have to be good to still be better than not getting any, so please click the email link below and let me know what you think about this, The Countdown, or anything else that’s on your mind. Hopefully as I’ve said Morph and I will get a new show out sometime soon, going back to our normal completely free format. I’ll be back in a week or so with the 4th Quarter Title Report along with the yearly rankings for all the title divisions of Raw, Smackdown, ECW and TNA. Also, I’ve started writing a little column called “Uneducated Liberalism” over at The Project and I’m going to try and get a new one of those out sometime relatively soon. Until one of those happens, I bid thee fucking farewell and thank you for climbing the stairs to The Nosebleed Section-but next time, get better seats. Click here to Email Randomguy#5!  Check out what people are saying about the premium edition’s of Monday Night Countdown or Click Here .to visit The Project’s MNC Homepage and order them for yourself! “Awesome shows guys…a great effort mucho appreciated. How can i get tickets to next years awards show?” --Mac10 “Fantastic. That was a lot of bang for the buck with the awards show and bloopers added. The [impressions were] top notch, as always. And Random's non-PC rant was a thing of brilliance.” --Boss Foxx “To actually learn about WRESTLING (and have it still be entertaining) you guys are the best.” --Jared “My favourite segment was the final segment regarding the new ECW, you really hit every single problem they are having right now and found bout 4 different ways to fix it. I thought you guys made some very valid and interesting observations…Thanks for the last years worth of entertainment and I look forward to another year.” --Sir DanDan “I also found the year end show and awards show very entertaining. You and Morpheus work very well together IMO and are seriously funny. You guys also seem to have just as good of a grasp on wrestling as anyone else in the IWC." --Jeff Mencee Awards Show Preview 2006 Year In Review Preview *NEW GALLERY* New AMAZING Candid Photos of Karen Angle on BLTS! WOW!
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