Botched Spot

Alright, I watch Days of Our Lives. I admit it! My wife and I have been watching since January-ish of this year and haven’t looked back. And why not watch it? It’s another serial tv show. Everyone including Linda McMahon says wrestling is a soap opera, so why can’t I enjoy one and not the other? I’m not ashamed. I’m not ashamed. I’m kind of ashamed, but it’s not going to keep me from writing this blog post.

And the reason why I brought it up is the one thing that wrestling easily has over soap operas: Pay Per Views. Not that I really want to pay to watch soaps, but pay per views serve as an accumulation of all the storylines going on, if not completely ending them, at least adding a plot point. Actual soap operas don’t have that guiding hand to say, “hey… let’s move this story along, alright?” Instead they tread water for too long! So I took a break from thesis writing to lay out what I think would be a pretty good card right now for Days of our Lives if they were to have their own Summerslam. Or, if you will, a “Days of our Slams”. And for the record, the photoshop skills displayed in this fake wrestling card are the skills that earned me the right to be a co-fed head of an e-fed for four months! And if you don’t know what an e-fed is… you’re better off.

Granted if you aren’t with me in the 1% of wrestling fans who watches Days of our Lives, you might not get a lot out of this, so I’ll also add that I enjoyed TNA’s very special episode last Thursday, though TNA Reaction seemed a waste of time, I like Alex Riley of NXT Season 2 more than before but continue to vote for Husky Harris, and I was going to buy Summerslam, until I realized the only match I’m really interested in is Nexus vs. Team WWE- not worth $45 to me. …Although if I’d known about Daniel Bryan’s return I would have bought it in a heartbeat. But anyway, on with the show:

THE MAIN EVENT
Bo Brady and Dr. Carly Manning vs. Hope Brady and Dr. Richard Baker

The Background: Dr. Carly Manning wedged her way between Days’ supercouple Bo and Hope, driving Hope to turn evil and go on a crime spree against the men of Salem with the help of hapless schmoe Dr. Richard Baker. At the urging of friends and loved ones, Bo and Hope agree to settle their marriage… IN THE RING!

Wrestling Comparison: Macho Man and Sensational Sherry having a match against Miss Elizabeth and Koko B. Ware.

The Finish: The finish comes when Carly viciously attacks Hope with a chair, leading Bo to instinctively rush to Hope’s aid, showing concern. The chairshots knock Hope back to her senses, leading Bo and Hope to share a passionate kiss before taking out their tag partners together for a feel good no contest!

EVENING GOWN MATCH
Maggie Horton vs. Vivian Alamain w/ Victor Kiriakis as special enforcer

The Background: Millionaire businessman Victor Kiriakis married Vivian to keep her out of trouble- but no sooner did the two exchange vows before Victor became smitten with Salem’s Mary Worth equivalent, Maggie Horton, filling Vivian with a desire to seek revenge… IN THE RING!

Wrestling Comparison: Vince McMahon when he “divorced” Linda and began a relationship with Trish Stratus. Except instead of Trish pretend it’s Mae Young.

The Finish: Halfway through the match Maggie starts looking weary and only gets worse as the match goes on. For the finish, the ref finds tiny poisoned pins sticking out of the tips of Vivian’s gloves and shoes, and goes to call for a disqualification, but it is too late! Maggie is already dead. Victor comes in to reprimand Vivian, but she shoots him and plays with his blood.

I QUIT MATCH
Rafe Hernandez vs. EJ DiMera w/ Sami Brady as special referee

The Background: Son of a crime lord and an all around baby kidnapper, EJ DiMera has been fighting with FBI agent Rafe Hernandez for the affections of Salem’s favorite reformed bad girl and all around baby factory Sami Brady. Sami loves both men despite EJ kidnapping their baby and Rafe being too tied up in his work. But now she’ll have to decide between them… IN THE RING!

Wrestling Comparison: Think of when Stephanie McMahon was in a relationship with Test but married Triple H.

The Finish: After getting the crap beat out of him the entire match, for the finish EJ finally manages to lock Rafe in a powerful submission maneuver that the FBI agent can’t seem to fight his way out of. Unable to stand seeing Rafe in such pain, Sami ends the match, declaring EJ the winner despite Rafe never actually quitting. As Rafe angrily objects, Sami kicks him in the junk, turning into the heel persona that made her famous.

BRADY BLACK ON A POLE MATCH
Arianna Hernandez vs. Nicole DiMera

The Background: Right as reformed drug dealer Arianna Hernandez was going to marry recovering alcoholic Brady Black, notorious baby switcher Nicole DiMera broke out of jail to ruin their special day. Nicole has been relentlessly trying to break up the pair since, even planting fake evidence against Arianna. Brady does what any chivalrous man would do- climb up a pole and let the women fight over him… IN THE RING!

Wrestling Comparison: Any time two women have fought over a man. I think maybe that happened to Val Venis once? I’m kind of drawing a blank on this one.

The Finish: In the middle of their battle, Arianna and Nicole catch a glimpse of Brady winking and flirting with other women in the audience from atop his pole. The women work together to pull his ass down and curb stomp him into oblivion.

THE UNDERCARD…

TRIPLE THREAT “LOSER BREAKS UP” MIXED TAG TEAM MATCH!
Philip and Melanie Kiriakis vs. Nathan Horton and Stephanie Johnson vs. Dr. Daniel Jonas and Chloe Lane

Match Description: These would be power couples fight to prove who truly belongs together despite more secrets, affairs, illegitimate children, and birth control issues than you could stuff in an issue of Soap Opera Digest!

MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH- Winner gets a main spot in a major storyline.
Gus Pascal(Vivian’s henchman wedding planner) vs. Gabi Hernandez vs. Anna DiMera vs. Abe Carver vs. Dr. Lexie Carver vs. Justin Kiriakis vs. Shane Donovan

Match Description: Days’ has-beens, never-weres, and not-right-nows battle it out for a chance to see who gets to be the next person to have an affair with Bo Brady or father Sami’s next child!

YOUR MOTHER’S A WHORE MATCH
Will Horton vs. Chad Petersen

Match Description: Days’ resident angsty teens fight it out over their moms’ honor despite the fact that one has like seven kids all from different men and the other’s mom is a hooker turned judge turned dead person at the bottom of a flight of stairs!

LITTLE KID BATTLE ROYAL DARK MATCH
Ciara Brady vs. Theo Carver vs. Johnny DiMera vs. Sydney DiMera vs. Allie Horton vs. Zack Brady

Match Description: All the Days’ children, bastards, orphans, and all fight it out in this adorable confrontation!

Oh, and Salem’s resident gangster couple Stephano and Kate DiMera would perform commentary.

So I think that’d be a pretty good card for the show. If Days did something like that I might lay down money for it, but they’ll probably stick with the same slow, drawn out storytelling style that takes forever to get anywhere… and I’ll keep watching. Hm… maybe next time I need a break I’ll try to think up a card for a Jurassic Park reunion show or for the Peanuts comic strip! The Red Baron vs. the Kite Eating Tree? I think so.

Ah, San Diego Comic-Con! I attended my first Comic-Con this past week, hence the simpler, faster to draw (yet seemingly more popular) Lil’ Botched Spot comics last Wednesday and Friday. It was a pretty awesome experience, although completely overwhelming. The main reason my wife and I went was so she could promote her upcoming graphic novel, “A Friendly Game”, at the SLG Publishing booth, but we had plenty to do besides that. I’ve been to comic conventions before, but none nearly as massive as Comic-Con… and that’s a good thing and a bad thing.

Super Packed!
The convention center was packed. Beyond packed. Like something that fire marshals have nightmares about. It was cool to see so many people excited about comics and dressed in all their different costumes, but damn, that was a lot of people! It was bad enough shuffling along the con floor in long lines trying not to step on Darth Vader’s cape (which I accidently did once), but upstairs where the panels were held was even worse. Up there wannabe bouncers half-assedly ordered people where to walk, where they couldn’t walk, where they couldn’t sit, where they couldn’t stand, without ever seeming to know any actual information about the convention. I’m honestly surprised only one person was stabbed during the whole thing!

Panels!
But going upstairs was worth it for some of the panels. I went to quite a few, some of which were engaging (Webcomics.com’s lightning round) and others less so (Vampire fiction writing). The best one of all though, was the panel entitled “Mattel and WWE: The Ultimate Tag Team” that featured the wrestlers The Miz and Eve, creative writers Brian Gewirtz and Ed Koskey, and some guys from Mattel. I know videos of it have already surfaced online, so I won’t try and do a full recap of all the questions, but I will say that it was very cool, especially considering that the writers behind RAW were there and taking questions. Both Brian and Ed seemed to be pretty honest and humble, or at least more so than I expected them to be, and didn’t seem to hold back too much on any questions. The Miz was extremely funny and self admittedly long winded, and kept the whole experience very entertaining. As a fan of the Miz’s, it was awesome to hear him talk about his whole history and upbringing, including all of his Smackdown/ Diva Search hosting nonsense.

I did feel pretty bad for Eve and the Mattel guys who were barely asked any questions. I think too much was crammed into the hour-long panel, and it’s no surprise Miz and the writers overshadowed them.

Wrestlers?
And speaking of wrestlers, I searched long and hard on both the Comic Con website AND wwe.com for the times and locations of wrestler autograph sessions and found… nothing! And yet on my last day at the con I had to hear one of the volunteers tell me all about the various wrestler signings that happened. How did she know? I have no idea. And of course now on wwe.com they have all kinds of information on all of their different wrestlers who showed up for the convention! I did see Gregory Helms down at the DC booth and Mick Foley at the 12 Gauge Comics booth, but they were engaged with others so I didn’t have any time for high fiving them.

I tried seeing if the Spike TV booth had any TNA related promotional stuff, but didn’t see anything. I could have missed it though.

San Diego!
Overall it was an awesome experience though, and worth missing Smackdown on Friday night for. …Oh, and TNA on Thursday. Downtown San Diego was awesome to hang out at and it was also fun catching up with my old SCAD buddies. Lindsay and I also managed to get away without spending TOO much money there, which is always a good thing. My most prized purchase was “Super Pro K.O.” by Jarrett Williams, a pro wrestling graphic novel done in an old school manga style. Jarrett was one of my few fellow wrestling fan friends at SCAD, and so it was exciting to see the fruits of all his labor. I hope to do a longer review of it in a future blog post.

So, that’s a brief overview of my San Diego Comic-Con experience! It was definitely worth it, but it was extremely draining and I think I’ve had my fill of comic conventions for a while.