RAW Regurgitation – A Night of Promos

Like Wrestling? You're gonna hate tonight's show then.

RAW happened last night. Whoopty shit. There wasn’t much to say for this one I’m afraid. I also fear we’re going to be forced to watch some kind of chess championship at Wrestlemania, or perhaps a Tweet-Off stomp the yard-style, between Big Johnny and Teddy Long.

For the record, I like both characters, I think they do exactly what they’re supposed to do and they do it well. I don’t, however, believe that we need a GM vs. GM Easy Bake Oven Dance Off at Wrestlemania. Hopefully they flush this turd before it wastes part of the PPV event in April.

That said, last night’s RAW was just chock full of…promos. Yeah, we got footage about everything, and very little of substance actually came to pass. I guess they’re trying to save the “good stuff” for another night.

Besides, they were in Oregon and those people don’t have much else to recommend them, so I suppose seeing big muscled up guys talk and act on the jumbo-tron was still a pretty good night out. It had to be better than watching the cat lick it’s balls while you listened to the weather report on your old transistor radio.

But I digress. Let’s get into it. RAW – A Night of Promos.

If you want to turn it into a drinking game, everytime there’s a vignette or promo mentioned, drink a beer.

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Raw Regurgitation – CEO’s, HHH’s, and WRASSLIN’!

Royal Rumble Yesterday...Anybody? No? Ok.

This is my third installment of the Raw Regurgitation. As I said last week, I intend to whittle down the word count as much as I can. So this week, I didn’t include the commercial reviews. Let me know if you’d prefer I put them back in. I sometimes do things that amuse only me. This episode of Raw came hot on the heels of the Royal Rumble pay per view. As the show opens we’re treated to the introduction of Executive Vice President of Talent Relations and Interim General Manager of Monday Night Raw and Assistant Fry Cook John Larenitis comes out shaking hands, kissing babies, etc. His job review is coming up tonight at the hands of Chief Operating Officer and Boss’ Son In Law, Triple H.

As he starts speaking, CM Punk interrupts after Big Johnny has announced the Elimination Chamber participants. We don’t let the PPV settle 24 hours before we start plugging the next one coming up. It is, afterall, all about getting in your pocket.

As Punk is berating and singing “Na nah nah nah Goodbye” somewhere between the key of A sharp and Holy Gawd This is awful, Daniel Bryan comes out and it’s announced that we’ll have a Champion vs. Champion match. Because that’s a fresh, new exciting idea. Of course, when you put Punk and Bryan in a match, it’s going to be guaranteed entertaining. But just as Bryan is getting his groove on, letting everyone know he’s better than they are because he’s vegan and doesn’t eat meat, out come Sheamus to remind us, “Hey I’m Sheamus and I’m here too!”.

As the winner of the Two Towsand Twelve Royal Rumble, he’ll pick his opponent for Wrestlemania and if these two guys still have their title after EC, then it will be one of them (Daniel Bryan). And then he tells Big Johnny that he hopes he gets fired by relating an old Irish saying, which (and I’m paraphrasing here) wishes for John’s lacy underthings to get kicked through his colon and out his mouth. B. A. Star Sheamus.

Commercial Break – See? No Recaps.

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Raw Regurgitation, Pre-Royal Rumble Edition

Somebody Call My Momma!

Somebody call my Momma. Raw wasn’t half bad tonight. It had all the elements of a good show without too much of a good show mixed in. It was the perfect storm, if you will.

Now, if you remember last week I went on forever about the show and this week I vow to cut it back a bit. Even I don’t like reading that much crap, and I’ve read at least 4 dozen Dean Koontz novels in the last 4 years. So we’ll try to make this thing a little bit more palatable.

Some notes before we get started:

I still credit @MrBrandonStroud from WithLeather for the inspiration behind doing these reviews.
The Funkasaurus is the best thing going in WWE today.
@5HourEnergy is pretty damn good at ignoring my Twitter heckling.
TGIFriday’s needs to quit pretending they aren’t called TGIFriday’s anymore
Divas matches need to be conducted in the nude, in HD, in slow-motion.

With that said, let’s get on to the show…

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RAW Regurgitation – Big Johnny Edition

The RAW Regurgitation

This is my first post about the WWE shows. Bear with me, I’m still finding my way. For a great recap and analysis, visit With Leather and read Brandon Stroud’s Best and Worst of RAW every Tuesday. This is going to be pitiful, I’m sure of it. I will probably miss alot of things here, but then, I have a memory about as long as my schlong.

With the WWE Royal Rumble only two weeks away, we have seen literally zero build up to the event from their flagship program, RAW. Typically, for those not in the know, WWE will build up to each and every Pay Per View event with storylines that get you interested in purchasing the show. At $45 and up, it’s a hard sell for many people who aren’t crapping cash. But, miraculously, they find ways to sell the show. Maybe people are willing to give up medication for a month or decided that Beer-Brand beer is good enough, who wants to pay for a name brand like Bud Light? Either way, for the last 4 weeks or so, the WWE has done little to nothing to build interest in the upcoming Royal Rumble event, which is the start of the Road to Wrestlemania.

Again for those of you who don’t know, the Royal Rumble match is a 30-man over-the-top-rope event. You only get eliminated when you’re literally tossed from the ring. The last man standing gets to wrestle the main event at Wrestlemania, which is the superbowl of the WWE. However, we’ve already been sitting on the marquee match since last year when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson challenged John Cena to a match. Everything else will be fluff. That said, let’s see what happened on Raw this week. Continue reading →

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WWE/Pro Wrestling – An Addicition

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I watch WWE programming. For those not in the know, get outta here. For those that do know what WWE is, then keep reading.

I grew up as a fan of the WWF. Note: the World Wildlife Foundation forced the World Wrestling Federation to change it’s name to prevent any “misunderstandings” in the public conscience. Apparently people would think they were donating to help save King Kong Bundy from taking a body slam, only to find out it was to protect an endangered koala bear or something. When I was a kid in the 80′s, I remember tuning in to USA network every weekend to watch clips of shows they taped during the week. I’d get so invested in what was going on between George “The Animal” Steele and Macho Man, that it was all I could think about. I knew it was “fake”, but I didn’t care. It was stupid, it was silly and it was big muscle bound idiots banging each other into ring posts for 20 minutes at a time. It was, simply, FUN. No thinking required, check your brain at the door and have fun.

As I got older, the product changed. It went from Hulkamania and Macho Madness to something more like a teenager’s guide to dick jokes. I’m not against a good dick joke, but these weren’t GOOD dick jokes. They were sophomoric attempts at toilet humor that fell short more often than not. Everything they did was vulgar. I like vulgar in small doses. I don’t like it for 3 solid hours. Not many people do. So I drifted away from the product.

Then, about 3 years ago, I re-discovered WWE. It had been almost a full decade since I last watched any of it. And you know what? They cleaned it up since I had left. It got silly again. Sure, they have their moments where the occasional “ass”, or “bitch” slips out. They still make awful jokes and have terrible storylines, but that’s what I grew up with. It was good because it was hokey. You didn’t REALLY believe that the Ultimate Warrior was a cosmonaut from a distant galaxy sent here to purge the WWE of inferior beings. You enjoyed what he was saying precisely because it was so bat-shit insane.

Over these last 3 years, I’ve found myself paying to watch their PPV events. A lot. In fact, the first full year of following, I think I paid for EVERY ONE of their 14 events. At roughly $40/show, that’s….well, what am I a Math major? It’s a lot of money to waste on scripted entertainment. Or is it? I’d spend about the same taking my kids to the circus and buying snacks, toys, etc. That’s easily a $200 day for us. Going to a movie? Again, that’s easily a $80 proposition for my family. So it balances out. The kids seem to enjoy the shows, they’re not invested in it by any means, but they know the performers, they enjoy them and it’s fun.

What I’m getting at is, I plan to start a weekly series here at BellyBillboard talking about that week’s shows. They broadcast RAW on Monday nights (a live show) and SmackDown on Friday nights (a taped show). I’m not going to try to do a grading scale like so many pro wrestling columnists do, I think it’s pointless. And I’m not going to try to do anything like Brandon Stroud does over at the sports web site, WithLeather. There’s no way I can be as funny or entertaining as he is when it comes to pro wrestling. But what I will do is break down the parts that I liked, that I hated and that I thought were completely ridiculous. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this new feature. If you don’t, well suck it. It’s my blog and I’ll do what I want.

Let me know your thoughts on Pro Wrestling, good, bad or pure hatred in the comments section. Expect my first article sometime this week.

WWE Wrestling Show in My Hometown

So, last night the WWE Monday Night Raw Supershow rolled into Columbia, SC. My wife and I shelled out the money to take 3 of our boys, the oldest didn’t seem to interested and figured he’d be working anyways. Whether you like wrestling or not, it was a great experience that my kids loved and we had a “mostly” great time. There were some issues though.

First off, we purchased tickets for 5 seats, all together, because as a family, we like to sit together. Maybe we’re quirky like that, but so be it. We found our seats, Section 118, Row 17, Seats 18 – 22. Count that out, 5 seats, right? 5. Not 4, not 6, but 5. 18, 19. 20, 21, 22. F-I-V-E. At $16 per butt perch, we intended to use them all.

Well, we get to the row and they have roped off the last 3 seats in the row, for about 5 rows to make room for a tripod that the WWE was using to hold a camera. Not thinking much of it, as our seats were butted right up next to the barrier, we just sat down. About a half hour into the show, another couple shows up to sit next to us and says we have one of their seats. I had to look at the tickets twice to see what had happened. Apparently, each row has 25 seats, and they had roped off seat 22, 23, 24 and 25. Meaning, of course, that my seat 22 wasn’t available.

We had this happen to a family behind us (who I’ll get to in more detail shortly), and they wound up sitting one of the kids on their laps, because the “EVENT STAFF”, you could tell this by the yellow parka she wore with huge letters saying as much, said “What you want me to do ’bout it? It’s blocked off. Not my job to worry about your seat.”. Nice, real classy there Colonial Life Arena. I mean, I understand that you don’t draft from the best schools when hiring “EVENT STAFF”, but you could at least teach them to take care of the customer, maybe use that radio they carry around to find a solution or call a manager over so the customer doesn’t have to trudge all the way back out to the ticket office to stand in line for 30 minutes. Or maybe I’m just freakin’ insane. Who knows?

So, I wound up putting my youngest son on my lap to watch the show. After about 30 minutes, we noticed the 4 seats directly in front of us were staying empty and migrated two of the boys down there so everyone could be comfortable. As a side note, the tripod stood empty the entire show. Not once did they mount a camera to it or come back to it for anything. I considered stealing it as we left, just to be a dick, but then realized, I had nowhere to keep a 7 foot tripod.

Anyhow, we’re watching the show. If you’ve never been to a WWE wrestling show, I’ll set the scene for you. Columbia, South Carolina is one of the saddest, most boring, psuedo-cities in the world. We have next to nothing going on. In fact, if you remove the University of South Carolina from Columbia, there’s really much of nothing here. A museum, a few McDonald’s and some crack heads. Oh, and churches…LOTS of churches. Might as well be holy and high, right? So, the Colonial Life Arena holds about 18,000 – 19,000 people. And since there’s jack shit to do in Columbia otherwise, when the WWE comes to town, people show up in force. It’s THE hot ticket.

Also, it was raining and cold in Columbia last night. We had to wait in the rain for 30 minutes for them to wheel the aging, elderly, just-happy-to-have-a-part-time-job-that-isn’t-Wal-Mart ticket takers into place. What happened when they opened the doors was pitiful. Thousands of people crammed into an area that was built to hold, at best, 100 people. The scanners they used for ticket processing were about as big as 1980′s cell phones, and about as reliable. After 20 minutes of getting to know my fellow Columbians in intimate ways, we got through the ticket gates. I next stood in a roughly formed crowd to buy $80 worth of T-shirts, hats, masks and such for my boys. This was a treat. I think I got groped by at least 5 different grown men. My therapist says it will be o.k.

Sorry for the tangent there.

We’re sitting in our seats and there’s two Dads and 3 of their kids behind us. The show begins. It’s loud, and we expect that. Hell, we were loud too. But the kid who was sitting directly behind me was like nails on a chalkboard, through a megaphone, through an amplifier turned up to “11″. He was so damned loud and piercing. You could tell he wasn’t on his medication last night. And he NEVER. SHUT. UP. ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Oh, and he had that sort of cute from a distance southern twang in his voice. For example, this is what I heard for about 20 minutes solid at one point:

“See Eyim Pohnk, yew desrrrv tah ween! See Eyim Pohnk, don’t lettim git yew dow-yun!” Translation: CM Punk, you deserve to win. CM Punk, don’t let him get you down. All three of my boys were ready to go whip his ass just to shut him up. I was ready to let them, but I was sober, and I couldn’t allow them to kill a small child who was so obviously having the time of his life. Although, there were times I was ready to kneecap the little bastard.

All in all it was a great time, I took half a bottle of Excedrin when I got home to cure the headache that lil’ Tater caused me from screaming at me for 3 hours straight, and my boys had a blast. Soon, I’ll write something about pro-wrestling that hopefully will change your opinion of it, if you dislike it.

Child on Child Violence

A regularity in my home

Or…growing up with siblings.

See, I was an only child. I had no brothers or sisters, so my only fighting experience was with the prissy little dog or my father. Neither fight I could win. Both fights ended about the same way, me nursing my wounds and gagging in a noxious cloud of fart gas.

Having 4 boys has been an eye opening experience for me. The first thing I’ve learned is that brothers literally hate each other at least 12 different times per day. I mean deep seated loathing too, none of that “Gawd, I hate him so much” stuff.

This is the purest, blackest form of hate I’ve ever experienced (and I used to work in customer service call centers for rip-off diet drug companies). And the amazing part is they can just switch it on, and switch it off. Much like you or I would turn on the bathroom light. It’s truly a spectacle.

So, the average day around here is like this:

Wake Up – We’re all friends but that’s only because we’re not awake fully yet.
Breakfast – Hey, you took the last english muffin! I hate you, you stink and you like girls! ”Yeah well I hope you die. And then I hope you poop your pants”
Post-Breakfast – Let’s watch Spongebob together.
A few minutes later – “He took my pencil, I hope he dies!” But it was my pencil first! ”No, I had that pencil yesterday! I will kill you until you’re dead. ” Well I hope you die in a toilet that hasn’t been flushed.

And we finally get started on our school work, where they’re mostly separated from each other and involved in their studies. But then Lunch time rolls around.

Lunch: ”Hey, I wanted to make that sandwich!” Well, just take this one I made for you. ”No, I hate this sandwich, you touched it and you suck!” I suck? No, you suck and you’re ugly and Mom hates you as much as I do. <punch> <cry> <lather> <rinse> <repeat>

And it’s about here that I have to get in between the writhing mass of adolescence that resembles a fight scene from Bugs Bunny and Friends.

This might also be a good time to mention how big my kids are. My 11 year old is nearly 5 feet tall and weighs in around 120lbs. My 8 year old is about 4’9″ tall and weighs in around 120lbs. He’s like Bam Bam. And then the 7 year old is 4’5″ and roughly 70lbs, so he’s basically the runt of the group at this point. Compared to other 7 year olds on his sports teams however, he’s a small giant in his own right.

You’ll notice that I say I have 4 boys but only talk about 3 of them. The oldest will be 18 in December and has joined the Army National Guard. Most of our interaction is when he schlumps out of bed around Noon and eats cereal in his underwear.

Anyhow, back to the sibling rivalries. When Bam Bam loses his shit, and it’s really hard to get him angry, he lashes out physically. To put this in perspective, imagine the Tasmanian Devil. Now put that in an 8 year old body. There was an incident earlier this year where Jesse (the 11 year old) kept picking on Aaron (Bam Bam) to the point that Aaron was going to kill him. He went ballistic. I wasn’t here to witness the start but I did see the end.

His mother, my wife, had tackled him to the ground and was literally pinning him to the floor until he cooled down. He was going to tear Jesse’s head off of Jesse’s body and presumably shit down his neck afterwards. I would have pitched in to help, but I was busy laughing at the time. So yeah, we tend not to push Aaron too far. Plus, even when we’re playing, if he hits you, you’re going to have a bruise. He doesn’t know his own strength. I tend to stay back from him when we’re rough-housing, as I age it takes me much longer to heal.

There was another time a few years back when Jesse was getting picked on by the oldest boy, and he finally snapped and latched around Shane’s neck with the most picture perfect sleeper choke-hold you’ve ever seen. The WWE guys could learn something from this boy. Shane’s eyes were bugging out and he was flailing around, gasping for air. We had to remove Jesse from his older brother.

Again, they’re not violent kids, despite what you’ve been reading, they’re usually pretty level headed and can take a massive amount of aggravation before it comes to physicality. They’re all like miniature Incredible Hulks. You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry.

I’d also like to mention that insults and smart-ass remarks are an art form with my kids. From birth, we have picked on each of them and teased them incessantly. Never in a mean spirited way, but they’re used to being called names, or teased, whatever you want to call it. You really can’t, as an outsider, piss them off with your words. They’re immune. But let someone related by blood try it. They really know where the sore spots are, and they will poke at them with sharp sticks.

The level of hatred they can just turn on and turn off frightens me. I’m worried that when time comes to pick my nursing home, they’re going to be pissed off and I’ll wind up in a Guatemala Prison Camp somehow.

NFL Cage Match – Harbaugh vs. Schwartz

In what is certain to be the first in a long line of head professional wrestling bouts, the NFL is proud to announce their partnership with WWE and Vince McMahon. Thanks to the response from fans around the country, the NFL has realized the potential for profit and excitement they could bring to the half-time programs.

The first match has already been announced and will take place during the half time show of Super Bowl XLVI. In this mega-event we will bear witness to the brutality and the viciousness that only a steel cage match can deliver. Fighting out of San Francisco, California and weighing in at, let’s say 200lbs, the Sashay from the Bay, Jim Harbaugh! And straight out of Detroit Michigan, weighing in at, let’s say 195lbs, the Hot Rod Hammer, Jim Schwartz! (please refrain from making Spaceballs references)

harbaughschwartz 300x200 NFL Cage Match Harbaugh vs. Schwartz

Epic Coach on Coach Violence

This will be epic. Based on fan reaction to this year’s inaugural event, there are plans for off season tag team matches, 32 coach over-the-top-rope battle royals, and the ever popular Lingerie MMA Fight.

Here’s hoping things will go well and we’ll all be treated to John Fox vs. Tom Coughlin in a walker vs. wheelchair main event at Superbowl XLVII. Perhaps a Rex Ryan vs. Rob Ryan topless, jello wrestling match with midgets? And who wouldn’t pay good money to watch Bill Belichick throw down with Colts head coach and part time doorstop, Jim Caldwell?

Belly Billboard

What What? On My Gut!

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