haws bah gawd

I just got back from this FANTASTIC show. It was from the Township Auditorium in Columbia, SC. Its a pretty small place, that holds between 2500-2750. It was just shy of being sold out. You could see Arn Anderson, Dean Malenko, and someone who appeared to be Ricky Steamboat, watching the matches from the stage. La Resistance did their usual interruption of the National Anthem, only to be interupted by Tajiri and Regal making their entrance to start the match. One has to wonder why the crowds chant USA USA in support of a team consisting of an Oriental guy and a British Guy. Regal and Tajiri retained after Regal's "Knee of Doom" to Conway. Great opening match. Next was Simon Dean doing his "blah blah fat people blah blah exercise" bit. His opponent turned out to be Viscera. If you've never seen Vis in person, hes THICK. Much bigger than he looks on tv. Vis can move extremely well for a man weighing nearly 500. Vis won with his rolling kick, then big splash. Hurricane vs Chris Masters was next. Hurricane got in a lot of offense, but Master's won with the Master Lock. Next was Molly vs Victoria with Val Venis as Special Referee. Average womens match, with a pretty innovative ending. Molly went up for the Molly-Go-Round, but Victoria crotched her on the ropes, turned her upside down, dragged her off the turnbuckles and dropped her with the Widow's Peak. Next was Shelton Benjamin vs Muhammed Hassan. Benjamin's mother was in the third row on the floor. Shelton made Hassan look like a million bucks. Benjamin is the future of WWE. After hitting the Dragon Whip, Davairi brock up Benjamin's attempted pin on Hassan. Shelton fought back, gave both Exploder Suplexes, grabbed the mic and said "Not In front of My Mom, you dont". Kane vs Tomko and Christian was next. Oddly enough, Tomko looked VERY good in the ring today, as compared to his televised performances. Perhaps he suffers the "fear of screwing up on camera", similar to Mordecai? Tomko accidentally hit Christian with his running big boot, Kane threw Tomko out of the ring, Chokeslammed Christian and got the win. Next was a typical heat segment with the Coach. He introduced Moolah and Mae Young as hometown superstars. Oddly, at the 12-3-04 houseshow from Augusta, GA, Moolah and Mae were billed as being from Augusta. Weird. Anyways, Coach babbled on about what legends the two ladies are. Orton then made his predictable appearance. He talked trash about the Undertaker and received NUCLEAR heel heat for it. He then went on to ask Moolah and Mae if they knew why he was called "the Legend Killer". The heat on Orton built and built because we all thought he was about to RKO one of the ladies, but he instead swerved, and RKO'ed the coach. Typical boring repetitive Orton segment. Next was Snitzky vs Chris Benoit. Benoit was his usual excellent self in the ring, bumping like a pinball for Snitzky and doing his part to carry the match. Snitzky looked pretty good, but fell victim to the Pumphandle Slam countered into the Crippler Crossface. Chris Jericho vs Edge was next. There was a fairly large "You screwed Matt" chant directed towards Edge, which he acknowledged with a couple pelvic thrusts. This was a VERY VERY good, PPV-quality match between these two. Edge attempted to use a ladder against Jericho, but it backfired, and Jericho got the win with the Walls of Jericho. Next up was a non-title HHH vs Batista match. BIG DAVE got far and away one of the loudest pops I've ever heard in person, and this was coming from an extremely small crowd. If this is any indication of what we have to look forward to at Wrestlemania, then we're in for quite a show. HHH played the pussy-heel role perfectly. Backing down from BIG DAVE at every given opportunity. BIG DAVE pretty much whooped HHH's ass from one side of the ring, to the other, with HHH getting in only a small 5-minute burst of offense in the middle of the match. HHH tried to use the ring steps, a chair, and the mic against Batista but nothing worked. Dave sold the shot from the ring steps pretty good, but soon began to fight back. The end was DAVE hitting a clothesline on HHH that echoed throughout the arena, and hit so hard, HHH spit his gum about 20 feet into the air, and it looked like every bead of sweat on his body shot off. Edge ran out, and slipped HHH the title belt. HHH hit Dave with the belt, but he kicked out at 2, blowing the roof off the place. Orton then ran out to attack Edge and drive him away from ringside. Dave then hit the Spinebuster, and Demon Bomb, and got the clean win over HHH. Shows like this is why WWE will always earn my $$$. These guys put their heart and soul into matches whether there are 2,000 people in the crowd or 40,000. I prefer houseshows over televised events because the wrestlers seem like they're just having a good time, are much more relaxed, and arent trying to be serious the whole time. I will gladly be seeing WWE again next time they come this way. If anyone has any further questions about the show, feel free to ask.

Kidman apparently got the "we give up on him" thing from the writers again. After about a month of treating his Shooting Star Press, as though it was death itself, he just up and disappeared.

I can't say much other than what has already been said, but this is EXACTLY who WWE should be proud to have as their Champion, and representing their company. I've been singing the praises of BIG DAVE since the first time I saw "Leviathan" in OVW, and this is nothing but fucking class shown by the guy.

I hope to God, WWE gives Janetty a contract after tonight. I agree 100% with everyone. That really took me back to my childhood. The guy can STILL go, and was fairly quick. *still marking for The Rockers*

Daniels deserves a run with the X-Title probably more than anyone. He can mat-wrestle, fly, and sell nearly anything like it's death. I would lvoe to see him get a run with the World title, and the X-Title is a good first-step towards doing so.

What's the deal with Angle, Reigns, and Jindrak? I thought they were a stable? You would figure Angle would be concerned over 2 guys in his group bickering with eachother. Did the stable break-up, or has WWE pulled their usual "we're bored with this group, so we'll act like they were never together" routine?

I would buy the next Kidz Bop cd in a second if there was a kiddy version of Vermillion or Duality.

Not much of a refresh, but he just walked into the lockerroom, and found a note that said "I remember". I believe it was meant to lead to he and Goldust reuniting, but I think Goldust was released soon after.

I had to add another match to your list Sturgis. A guy can dream right?

I'll go with the baseball bat beatdown at the end of Casino. Up until I saw that movie, I hadn't seen many other R-rated movies. That was the most brutal asskicking I had ever seen. Another for me is the curb-stomp in American History X.

I'm sorry to post off topic, but what was the deal with Warrior getting the stomach cramps from Shango? I remember him going into convulsions and having to be removed from the ring, then he puked all over everyone backstage. Did Warrior possess the mystic ability to vomit on command, or how else was this done? Was there ever a blow-off to their feud? Back on topic, what about DDP's "mysterious benefactor" that got him off the streets and back in WCW after he lost the retirement match to Johnny B Badd?

Has there been any other wrestler on the roster to consistently get injured, and reinjured, time and time again, as often as Mark Henry?

Would the Orange Goblin put over Hassan? I'm not a big fan of Hassan, but a win over Hogan (The All-American Super Hero of the 80's) would definitely give him a HUGE boost.

At Bad blood earlier this year, there was a funny part in the HBK/HHH Hell in a Cell. Close to the end, you seen HBK about to hit HHH in the head with the ladder. You can see HHH mouth what looks like "Oh, Fuck" just before he gets hit in the face.

Fucking triple post, feel free to delete this too.

You're Welcome!

The Powerbomb is a standard-issue HOSS move, but Batista puts so much force behind it, that I don't mind seeing it. Plus, it pops a crowd something awful everytime he does it. BIG DAVE had one move that I saw a couple times in old OVW footage that I would love to see him use again. It started off like Scott Steiner's Spinning Belly-to-Belly. He would wrap his arms around his opponent, spin the opponent around, then after he lifted the opponent off the mat, he would turn it into that SICK spinebuster he's been using for a while.

I would love to see a team bust out the Total Elimination. For those who didn't watch ECW, or have never heard of the Eliminators, it goes like this: It is a two-man combination of a sweep-kicking a guys legs out from under him while your partner gives him a spinning heel kick. It was a very simple-looking move that looked like DEATH when it was sold properly.

As an adult, nothing, and I mean NOTHING for a pop out of me and my friends better than Rock vs Hogan at WMX8. We were already cheering for Hogan, because he the childhood hero of all of us. Then when the crowd completely turned on the Rock and started cheering for Hogan, it made us all feel like kids again. As a kid, the favorite moment of mine was Warrior vs Hogan at WM6. I was all for Hogan until they gave Warrior the title shot. I got completely pulled-into Warrior's superhero character, and I couldn't wait to see him become World Champion. Its hard to believe that all that time ago, Hogan "passed the torch" to the Warrior, and look who stuck around longer.

Billy Gunn also used the move as a finisher during his last few shows with the company. I remember him using it a lot on Velocity.

Does anyone have a pic of the NWA North American Championship, that Jarrett carried around at the time?

Anyone think HHH's knees will hold up, into his 50's? If you look at his in-ring attire, he has a huge knee pad on each leg, and about 70 percent of his legs heavily wrapped. I'm sure its from all the years spent using the Pedigree, and the quad-tear in 2001 didn't help things much either. He's also very noticeably slowed-down his ring style as opposed to the style he used from 1999-2001.

Remember in the Spring of '02 when RVD got the fluke win over 'Taker for the Undisputed title? The place fucking ERUPTED when he got the win. It was one of the loudest pop's I had ever heard on RAW up until that point. Its just a shame WWE felt it necessary for Ric Flair to immediately restart the match, and after the kick.WHAM. Last Ride, 'Taker had the belt back. If they were so dead-set on Taker getting the title back ASAP, why not have him job it back on the following RAW? RVD wont be able to go forever. I dont think it would hurt WWE to give him just a one month trail run with the title, to see how things work out. Then it he remains over, keep the title on him for a while longer.

Maybe I'm missing something, but who is Chris Champion?

My pick is DDP vs Giant from Starrcade 97. Giant had been using the "Super Chokeslam" (just a normal chokeslam, but executed by dragging the guy off the top rope) as his finisher, and WCW had hyped it as death, itself. Anyways, he went for the Super Chokeslam on DDP, and as Giant dragged him off the turnbuckles, in mid-drop, DDP countered into the Diamond Cutter. That got a big pop out of me and some other guys watching the show. I seriously thought DDP was finished at that point.