Survivior Series: Post-mortem

The show, as expected, was a let-down, so there's not much to note here -- other than that the three least-ambiguous of my predictions all proved untrue to varying degrees.

I did say that both Flair and Triple H would bleed, didn't I? Well only Flair bled this time. But to be fair, he bled enough for both of them.

I also said that Melina would win the title from Trish, but I guess the bookers prefer Stratus to hold the title rather than chase it.

And that Bischoff/Long nonsense I promised to fast-forward through? I must confess I would have stopped to watch the end, when the Boogeyman did his bit, just for the sheer inanity of it all.

Anyway, it's over now, and it's onward to... well, nothing particularly interesting just yet. There's little about the current angles and booking to captivate me at the moment. And even the prospect of an Elimination Chamber match at New Year's Revolution doesn't fill me with any sense of expectation.

I can understand that lack of morale following Eddie's death, coupled with the long-term booking plans going awry for the same reason, could allow things to stagnate to an extent. But it's winter and I'm cold and I need something to entertain me, not encourage hibernation.

Attention Readers

(If I have any readers, that is...)

I have moved this blog to a sparkly new location: http://theirishwhip.wordpress.com/

You may change your bookmarks and feed subscriptions accordingly. I'll see you there.

Survivor Series: Preview

So much to post about, so little time. But I've got a few minutes right now so here's a filler post about tonight's Survivor Series -- which I won't be watching. I mean, there's only six matches on the card (plus the return of the Undertaker -- ooh I'm wetting myself with excitement) which is a bit light for what is supposed to be one of the bigger PPVs. Anyway, here's my rundown of the matches:

Chris Benoit v Booker T (Best of Seven Series: Match 1) This would be far more interesting if it were the final match of the series, rather than the first. I seem to recall they made the same mistake with the Booker T/John Cena series from last year. I'm sure it'll be good, but they'll be saving themselves for the end, not this one. Prediction: It's best of seven, so it doesn't matter who wins this one. That's why it's such a bad booking mistake for a major PPV.

WWE Women's Champion Trish Stratus vs Melina Melina can't wrestle, and Trish can't carry her, so even though Fit Finlay will try his best, I'm sure this'll be full of stalling and/or botched spots, and will be over fairly quickly. Prediction: Melina wins the title due to some convenient outside interference.

Eric Bischoff vs Theodore Long On a card that's thin enough as it is, they ignore half the roster to give this piece of crap some air time? Ridiculous. It's a side-show attraction at best. Prediction: I don't have one. If I was watching this on tape I'd fast-forward through it.

Last Man Standing Match: Ric Flair vs Triple H Everyone knows that Triple H is the world's biggest Flair fan, and he'll do his damnednest to make sure this is a five-star battle. But this ain't Starrcade '83. Prediction: Both of them will bleed. A lot. In fact, I think they should have a competition, for a fan to win the opportunity for his blood to be used in the inevitable post-match transfusions (blood type permitting, of course).

WWE Champion John Cena vs Kurt Angle Seriously, how many times have we seen this before? It's getting obvious that Angle is the only man the WWE has enough confidence in to bring out the best in Cena, who will only be champion as long as he can sell t-shirts. But really, the repetition grew old months ago. Prediction: Unless the ring explodes or the roof caves in, there's nothing here to interest me, so I'd be fast-forwarding through this one too.

Survivor Series Elimination Match: Team Raw vs Team SmackDown! Ah, how I long for the glory days, when the Survivor Series was something special. This match, of course, won't be. Prediction: Raw has been so uppidy lately, Creative might give SmackDown! the nod. On the other hand, Raw is clearly the favoured brand, so they might get the win just to put SmackDown! in its place. It could go either way.

So there you have it; a sub-par pay-per-view with nothing we don't get for free on TV every week. The Survivor Series should present a great opportunity for some fun, exciting matches, but instead it's completely lacking in ideas.

The Eddie Guerrero tributes last week showed how exciting and refreshing inter-brand matches can be, so why not make that the basis of the Survivor Series? An annual end-of-year showdown between the brands would be infinitely more exciting than the dross they'll be serving up tonight.

Oh well. Maybe next year. It will be the 20th one, after all...

More on Eddie Guerrero

WWE.com has details of the initial autopsy report, confirming that Eddie Guerrero died from heart failure. His wife Vickie gave her response to the news:

It was heart failure. It was from his past – the drinking and the drug abuse. They found signs of heart disease. She (the examiner) said that the blood vessels were very worn and narrow, and that just showed all the abuse from the scheduling of work and his past. And Eddie just worked out like crazy all the time. It made his heart grow bigger and work harder and the vessels were getting smaller, and that’s what caused the heart failure. He went into a deep sleep.

As soon as they saw his heart, they saw the lining of his heart already had the heart disease. There was no trauma, and Eddie hadn’t hurt himself in any way. It answered a lot of questions. I knew Eddie wasn’t feeling very good for the last week. He was home and kept saying he wasn’t feeling good and we thought it was just “road tired.” So we thought he just had to rest. It answered a lot of my questions, too, because he was just so exhausted. She said it was normal because the heart was working so hard.

Sounds like a case of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, brought on by his past indiscretions. It could have happened any time.

The big wrestling sites are the best places to go for all the specifics, but I've collected here some links to the reaction from more mainstream sources online regarding the untimely death of Eddie Guerrero.

Yahoo!'s Buzz Index notes cyberspace's reaction to the news of Eddie's passing, with the surprising statistic that searches for Eddie shot up over 16,000 percent since the news came out.

Elsewhere, MetaFilter pays tribute to Eddie in its own way, while Plastic has a good story (and some not-so-good commentary) on the inevitable controversy that surrounds the death of a pro wrestler in this modern age, when taking the time to heal an injury can cost a superstar his livelihood.

I'll add more links here as I find them.

Thanks a lot, NTL

I set my VCR to tape the RAW tribute to Eddie last night. But what did I find when I checked it this morning? Two hours of Kane setting up a neckbreaker in mid-air.

That's right, the channel froze. And of course none of the fucking morons at NTL were paying any attention, so I missed all but the first five minutes of the show.

Fucking assholes.

Eddie Guerrero, 1967-2005

Eddie Guerrero was found dead in his hotel room this morning.

I don't know what to say. I feel just like I did when I heard Brian Pillman died. Stunned and numb at the same time.

(And yes, I have noticed the unfortunate coincidence of this post and the title of the previous entry.)

Not Dead Yet

Yes, I know I haven't posted here in weeks. No, the site isn't dead yet. You see what happened was, I got pissed off.

I had a notebook full of witty comments on Raw and SmackDown! shows, all ready to be typed up. I even went to the trouble of writing up that Unforgiven preview. And then? I realised how utterly useless it all was.

Let's face it, the current WWE product is crap. Sure there's a good moment here or there but, really, they occur more by accident than intention. By and large, it's shite beyond description.

I had a moment watching Raw last week, when they dug up Goldust and Vader for the Coach's aborted (and abortion of an) angle with Steve Austin. Goldust I don't mind so much, even though he was only there because his daddy's a booker again. But Vader? The man has put on so much weight he can barely balance when he stands up. Which was painfully obvious when he fell on his arse not once, but twice. It was just sad, because I remember him in his prime, when he was an agile monster. Kinda sums up the whole WWE for me right there.

So fuck it, I'm not going to waste my time making notes on shows that I'm barely enjoying. I'm not doing an Unforgiven review (other than this: it was shit). I won't comment, beyond right now of course, on my disgust at the treatment of Jim Ross over the last few weeks. I didn't even give a crap about Taboo Tuesday this year considering the options were so obviously stacked (at least last year gave you the illusion that your choices mattered).

What I will do, however, is continue to post about things I do like. And there are a few; they've been queued here while my anger and boredom subsided.

I've mentioned on my main weblog about blogging as a chore, which is what watching wrestling (and by extention, blogging about it) had become. I might still watch (or rather, fast-forward through) the WWE out of obligation, but I won't write about it unless it really grabs me. Besides, there's a whole world of wrestling out there beyond Titan Towers, just waiting to be discovered by yours truly. Might make this place an interesting read again, like it was to me for the first couple of weeks.

Who knows? I might even make a column out of it...

...nah. That's dangerous thinking.