Botched Spot

Hey everyone,

Wow, so let me start off by apologizing for the late updates!  I thought that once my summer started I’d have all kinds of time to do art stuff, but it didn’t quite work out that way.  I still got strips up eventually though, and now that I’m living back where I’m going to be for the next couple months, everything is setting into place.

But what ISN’T set in place is the WWE roster!  Tonight’s the draft, and while my gut instinct is that it will resemble last year’s unimpressive debacle, I can’t help but get a little excited for it.

It’s kind of pointless to post my predictions since I’ll be posting this about two hours before it starts, but what the hell, huh?  If nothing else it’ll give me a chance to show how wrong I can be.  I’ll list a few people that I think will be drafted.  Not necessarily who I WANT to be drafted, but who I think has the best chances of jumping to another brand.

TO RAW:

-MVP:  His storyline of discontent with Vickie Guerrero only cemented my suspicion that he will be jumping brands.  Looking to past years, he seems to fit the role of promising midcarder on Smackdown that could be the next big thing, like Carlito and Kennedy before him.  Hopefully he’ll fare a little better than those two.  Well, Carlito anyway, Kennedy’s doing alright.

-Rey Mysterio:  I’ve seen a few other rumors about this possibility and I think I’ll go with it.  Rey’s pretty much done all he can with the talent on Smackdown (of course it’ll change in the draft) and his high flying style would fit in well with the shorter matches on RAW.

-CM Punk:  While CM Punk doesn’t have the greatest win/loss record in the business, he’s over with the crowd which would make him a viable contender for RAW.  Whether he’d get pushed or buried there is anyone’s guess, but I can definitely see him going there.

TO SMACKDOWN:

-Umaga:  It’s been the most rumored draft of this year, and I want to have at least one safe bet.  I think the change will be good for Umaga since he’s a pretty decent big man wrestler and I can envision a few good feuds he could be in.

-Cryme Tyme:  I’m pretty iffy on this one.  But it’s my pick anyway, because I’m having trouble thinking of anything better.  I think these two would fit in pretty well on the blue brand, they’re always over with the crowd and spending time on the usually more wrestling-based Smackdown could help to improve their in-ring abilities.

-John Morrison and The Miz:  This is kind of a cheat since the ECW brand is switching to be filmed on Mondays before RAW, I can’t imagine Smackdown’s tag champs going along with it.  It could work, but I’d imagine these two staying where their gold is.

TO ECW:

-Super Crazy:  I guess?  I could see this ECW original going back to the brand from whence he came to continuing his jobbing out.  To be honest, I really don’t know.  ECW’s ratings have been so low, it seems like it’d be easier to just burn the show off rather than try to build it back up.  Also the fact that the show’s moving to Mondays where RAW stars can jump on there at any point seems to make drafts from RAW to ECW pointless.

Anyway, those are my predictions.  An hour from now we’ll see how wrong or right I am.  The only thing I’m really doubting is HUGE drafts like back in 2005 when the World Champions where switching brands.  But anything can happen in the WWE…

Thanks for reading,

-James

I was trying to think of how best to describe the RAW house show I went to last Saturday night, when I decided to just recreate part of it with this strip:

Yes, that’s a real quote.

No, I have no idea what it means.

It got me to shut up though, and stop cheering for the heels.  It was a great show overall though, and I’m really glad I went.  I’ve heard the opinion that house shows aren’t as good to attend as regular tapings, because it’s not going to be on tv and what you see isn’t cannon (does wrestling have continuity?).  BUT I tend to enjoy them more seeing as how there’s generally more wrestling involved, the crowds always seem to be more involved, and you get to see the wrestlers doing some different stuff that might not normally be on tv.

The show was up in Redding, California and the crowd was hot all night.  And as my comic shows, they were cheering for everyone they were supposed to.  Almost everyone got a good pop including guys who usually come out to almost no reaction at all like Super Crazy.

The full lineup of matches was:

Mickie James defeats Beth Phoenix

Lance Cade defeats Trevor Murdoch

Paul and Katie Lea Burchill defeat Super Crazy (in a handicap match)

Cody Rhodes and Hardcore Holly defeated Santino Marella and Carlito

Ted DiBiase Jr. defeated Hacksaw Jim Duggan

John Cena defeated JBL

Triple H defeated Umaga.

The matches were pretty good overall.  The Burchills vs. Super Crazy was surprisingly good, in my opinion.  The brother/ sister team hit a variety of cool double team moves like Paul putting Super Crazy into a surfboard stretch while Katie Lea jumped down on Crazy’s stomach with a mushroom stomp.

One thing surprising to me about the tag team match was how over Cody Rhodes was.  I mean all the faces were getting cheered somewhat, but Cody was getting all kinds of love from men, women, and children alike.

Ted DiBiase didn’t seem to be anything too special in the ring.  He cut a promo before his match which got him some heat, but in the ring he didn’t show anything that great.  He wasn’t bad either, just not great.

One of the most memorable things of the night was JBL’s pre-match promo that he cut.  He started out by asking the referee where he was, which got pretty good heat, but then really dug in by calling the hispanics in the crowd a bunch of fruit pickers, and criticizing everyone else for letting California become North Mexico.  There was even one kid in the audience holding a pro-JBL sign, and as soon as JBL saw it he pointed at the kid and said that writing JBL on a sign didn’t make him exempt from any of the rest of us.  Bradshaw said there wasn’t a single man in California that could beat him and then finished up by pointing out that we had all paid to see him and not once in his life had he ever paid to see any of us.

Now I’ve seen heels get heat before.  Earlier in the night Santino and Carlito had people booing them, but the audience was smiling as they were doing it.  When JBL was talking, he had people ready to jump in the ring and tear his head off.  There was no laughing going on.  I know JBL has a reputation as a backstage bully and isn’t the best in the ring (although his match with Cena was actually pretty good), but he is a master when it comes to working a crowd.

The main event was great too.  It was pretty surreal seeing a huge star like Triple H in our small cow town.  It was a no-DQ match, so HHH got to use his sledgehammer, which was cool to see.

Another interesting thing of note was that about five times throughout the show between matches Maria was walking around the audience and giving people $200.  It was usually little kids, but not always.  It was kind of nice, but awkward to watch as a fan since I wasn’t that enthused by watching other people get free money.

It was a fun experience overall though, and I’m definitely glad I went.  There was nothing too surprising and it didn’t reveal any possible upcoming feuds or anything, but it was a night of great wrestling and well worth the money.

Thanks for reading,

-James