Last night in London

Okay so Raw wasn't live last night but still, it aired last night. I don't have a whole lot to say about last nights show so this is going to be my shortest blog yet. Basically I became pissed off early in the show when the opening match was the WWE championship match between CM Punk and Mark Henry.

WWE continues to disgrace itself and insult every old school fan by putting its biggest title up first in the show instead of in the main event of the evening where it belongs. What was in the main event you may ask? Of course it was John Cena. Who else would it be?

I'm going to say this one time loud and clear so that in the future I'm not misunderstood in my opinions. FUCK JOHN CENA. The piece of crap is the worst thing in professional wrestling since Eric Bischoff.

The only other part of Raw I watched was the recorded interview that Brock Lesnar did about his return. And while I think he at least, shares my views on Cena, I did have one small gripe. But I'll let you watch the interview first.

No Brock, you didn't come back because you like hurting people. You came back because it got too hard to compete in the UFC and the WWE is the only other place on Earth where you can make a seven figure salary.


And just because I want to end this on an amusing note. Here's a random episode of "Are you Serious?" with The Road Dog and Josh Matthews.

The day after Raw

So last night Raw took place in our nations capitol of Washington DC. And it started right off with John Laurinaitis taking credit for bring Brock Lesnar back and then invited him to the ring. When Lesnar started speaking, he had barely gotten a few words out when he was interrupted by John Cena. Cena never took a microphone but you could hear him say to Brock, "I never got a chance to thank you for last week" with a big smile on his face. He then walked up to Brock and slapped him across the face. What came next was probably the best double leg takedown I have ever seen as Brock dumped Cena on his back and then proceeded to pound on him. The entire locker room quickly emptied and the ring filled with wrestlers and officials. It took pretty much everyone to separate the two. It was instantly evident however, that Cena took the worst of the encounter, having a big bruise on his jaw, a fat lip and a mouth full of blood. Looks like Lesnar got in one shot that wasn't a pulled punch.

Next was a tag team match that was basically a grudge rematch from last week. Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger versus Santino Morella and Brodus Clay. It was another typical cookie cutter good guy/bad guy match up where two of the more talented wrestlers on the roster were defeated by a walking comic strip and a dancing gorilla.

By the way, Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole .... the dinosaur discussion was not even slightly entertaining.

Then we cut away to Santino backstage looking for the evenings celebrity hosts, the "3 Stooges". Stars of this upcoming weekends theatrical tragedy ... er I mean comedy. Santino ends up stumbling upon Kane for was just standing behind a doorway in a corner for some reason. Morella then quickly ran off in fear.

We were then treated with a match between R Truth and Cody Rhodes. The match had barely begun when once again The Big Show came out and showed everyone footage of Cody losing to Kofi Kingston last week because he was watching footage of his Wrestlemania loss to the Big Show. A loss within a loss within a loss. (Inception?) Anyway, chalk up one more for The Big (Distracting) Show.

There was a brief but pointless backstage spot where Santino finds the 3 Stooges in a large shipping crate that was marked "Fragile" (with a backwards E), which Santino pronounced Fra-gi-lé and then commented on how it sounded Italian. (Okay I chucked at that part.)

Lord Tensai had a match next WWE's Japanese superstar Yoshi Tatsu. It turned out to be another squash match just like last weeks that again had to be stopped by the referee. I really wish someone would tell the writers that when a new guy has a debut, it makes them much more entertaining and intimidating if they have a great back and forth match and still come out the dominant competitor. Five minutes of manhandling someone half your size does not impress anyone.

Then we had basically a half hour segment of talk and then a match from CM Punk, he discussed the attacks by Jericho on his personal life and his straight edge lifestyle. And then he had a match with Mark Henry, a rematch from last week where Henry won by countout. The match lasted only a few minutes after CM Punk to it to the ringside area and bashed Henry in the head with a commentators monitor, getting himself disqualified.
I'd also like to say that I sympathize with CM Punk, being forced into this "alcohol abuse" angle that he is clearly uncomfortable doing.

Next was a pointless match between Zack Ryder and Alberto Del Rio where Alberto returns to winning and Zack keeps losing.

With a half hour left in the show the evening celebrity hosts, The 3 Stooges, finally came out to the ring, "Curly" entered by himself to the entrance music of "Real American" dressed as Hulk Hogan. He got in the ring, there was a slapstick and then "Curly" did his best Hogan impersonation. Which really wasn't that good, and also its old and tired since everyone on Earth has a Hogan impression up their sleeve. (Hogan however does a pretty good Randy Savage.) The crowd thankfully, let the 3 usurpers know that they were not appreciated. And thank god that Kane came out and ended it all with a chokeslam.

There were two promos backstage afterwards, the first was with Mark Henry when he was informed that he will get another match with CM Punk next week, and this one will be no DQ and no countout. Henry then forgot what title he was wrestling for when he declared he would be the next world heavyweight champion. (Strong like bull, smart like tractor.)

Then Brock Lesnar had his interview where he named himself a "war machine", and that he took Cena, and "knocked his pretty little mouth on his pretty little face." Did everyone eat a big bowl of dumbass this morning?

The final match of the evening was a match John Cena demanded. Laurinaitis placed him in a match against David Otunga. Now, Otunga is a great athlete with an imposing form but he really needs to stop posing during the match and focus on business at hand. Cena dispatched him with an "attitude adjustment" and then an STF submission. But before he could celebrate Cena was jumped from behind by Brock Lesnar and then treated to another F5.

After the show went off the air, Dolph Ziggler came out shooting his mouth off about Cena, John then planted him with an attitude adjustment so that the women and children in the crowd could apparently go home feeling good about themselves.

Rumor Mill

Just here to comment on a few things that have worked their way to my computer.

The first is concerning Brock Lesnar's recent return to the WWE and if Paul Heyman will be joining him or not.

Apparently, Lesnar has signed a 1 year deal that includes a major match at Wrestlemania 29. His "in-ring" return may not be until the end of the month at Extreme Rules, or in May at Over the Limit.

There are currently no plans to bring Heyman in as his mouthpiece. The reason being that Heyman is busy with several projects of his own.

A rumor involving the possible return of another former champion, Batista. He was quoted on his twitter account as saying "Follow my manager @JohnnyRyanJr he's going to be making some announcements about me VERY soon."
Does that mean the Animal and the WWE have gotten a deal done? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Too Many Titles and Farewell to a Legend.

So I'm thinking a lot lately about the salad days of my youth, and I found a full set of the old 1985 WWF trading cards that I can get for $20. You bet your ass I'm getting them. But anyway back on topic ...

I don't like the title situation in modern wrestling. The WWE has too many titles and they change hands too often which makes them practically meaningless. First of all they need to do away with the "World Title". I know, I know, many of you wrestling "purists" are saying "But that belt has ties to the original NWA title, there's so much history there!" Well that's only because the old NWA became the old WCCW which then became the modern WCW which was bought by the WWE. When the undisputed heavyweight championship belt was introduced in the early 2000's that was supposed to be the end of it. That belt was the merging of the lines between WWF and WCW. Which is why if you look around this page, you'll see images of a championship belt, but it's that one in particular. Because that's the only one I recognize as the REAL heavyweight championship.

That spinner belt (that no longer spins) that CM Punk is carrying around right now, while I will admit that I do like its shape and girth, I am not a fan of all the gemstones on it. It's way too "bling bling". (Thanks alot Cena) And like I said before, the world title (which is the old WCW title) shouldn't exist at all anymore.

As for the United States title ... Why? Why was that belt brought back? The US title was retired in 2001 when Edge defeated Test at Survivor Series and unified the United States and Intercontinental titles. I know, I know, once again they brought it back for "Captain America", Super Cena. But it's a useless championship that serves no purpose except to draw attention away from the Intercontinental title.

The Divas championship? What's the point? These girls want to win something, put them in an evening gown on a runway somewhere because the only one of them that knows a thing about wrestling is Natalya. The rest of them are models and nothing more.

Finally the tag team titles. I really miss the old WWF world tag team belts but I do kinda like these new ones. They look more "tag team". But the division itself is dead and pointless. They don't even give it any tv time anymore.

They really need to go back the way it was and have the new guys start out as tag team competitors, work their  way up into a singles career and maybe one day be Intercontinental Champion. Then if you're good enough and you've stuck with it for years and you pay your dues, then you might one day become heavyweight champion. Ask guys like Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart. They know what I'm talking about.

One final piece of news is a legend and WWE Hall of famer Chief Jay Strongbow,  passed away this morning at the age of  83. My condolences to his family, he will be missed.

RAW Reflections and a Night of Returns

So last night on USA we started with a recorded broadcast of the Wrestlemania Hall of Fame class of 2012 ceremony. And with the amount of respect I have for any Hall of Famer I can only say a few things.

1- Arn Anderson is such a class act.

2- Triple H and Shawn Michaels are still hilarious and deserve their own television show.

3- Why oh why did they let Mike Tyson speak?

4- Mil Mascaras, Yokozuna, and Ron Simmons deserved alot more than a 60 second montage.

5- Thank you Edge.

Now as for Raw, it aired live last night from the Continental Airlines Arena in Miami, FL and it started off with John Laurinaitis addressing the locker room about what to expect during his reign as general manager of both Raw and Smackdown, but was interrupted by WWE champion CM Punk. After Punk informed Johnny that the entire locker room still thought he was "a giant toolbox", Punk was rewarded with being forced to defend his title later against Mark Henry. If you ask me, it was worth it.

Now we go out to the ring and are treated to a 10 minute ring entrance by The Rock. Literally, I'm not kidding. It took that egomaniac 10 minutes from start to finish before he even spoke. And when he did finally speak it took another 10 minutes to basically say he was sticking around and setting his sights on being champion. Okay the part about the whistling fan was pretty funny, I'll give him that.

The first match of the night was another John Laurinaitis punishment being dished out. US champion Santino, defended his title against both Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger in a triple threat match. Being that Santino is an over the top goofball, I was actually looking forward to seeing him pummeled, but he held his own and retained the title. However, after the match when "Sw-iggler" tried to gang up on him, he was rescued by none other than the Funkasauras, Brodus Clay.

Then we were set for Lord Tensai's big debut. He came to the ring all mysterious but looking like he was trying to impersonate Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies (Kevin Nash ought to be pissed). Accompanied by his Japanese man servant Sakamoto. Now we were told that Tensai was a former WWE superstar that became a huge deal while competing over in Japan. It turned out to be Prince Albert or A-Train or whatever you wanted to call him. The match ended up being a 5 minute shellacking of poor Alex Riley. Hey WWE, here's an idea. Try developing young talent like Riley instead of focusing so much money and attention on people that no one cares about like A-Train.

Time for the WWE championship match between CM Punk and Mark Henry. It got off to a slow start because of the size difference between these two, Punk did a good job of trying to take Henry down with his speed and quick hands and feet. (Muay Tai has its advantages.) But eventually, Henry got his hands on Punk and did some more damage to Punk's already injured back. The match ended when Henry tossed Punk out of the ring, and he was counted out. Not too smart of a move by Mark since he can't win the title by countout. So he took out his frustrations by performing the "World's Strongest Slam" on Punk outside the ring. Leaving Punk wide open for more taunting by Chris Jericho. Jericho entered from the crowd and continued making fun of Punk's family, and decreed that it was time they shared a drink. (Obviously mocking Punk's "straight edge" lifestyle of no drinking, smoking, or drug use.) He retrieved a bottle of "alcohol" from the time keeper area (which led me to wonder how the time keeper can keep accurate time if he's three sheets to the wind every week.) and poured it over Punks face while he was lying prone on the floor and then smashed the bottle on his head. Officials came out to carry Punk backstage.

We were then visited by the new world champion Sheamus. Who was quickly interrupted by another returning superstar, Alberto Del Rio. Alberto spent about 5 minutes telling us all how great he was and then informed Sheamus that he was gunning for the World championship. Alberto was then on the receiving end of a Brogue kick to the face, much to the delight of the crowd, and myself.

The next match was between the former Intercontinental champion Cody Rhodes, and Kofi Kingston. The match itself really didn't have time to get underway before it was interrupted by the new Intercontinental champion The Big Show. Show treated the crowd with a clip of Cody being knocked out at Wrestlemania, and while Cody was distracted, Kofi took the opportunity to get the win.

The last match of the night was between The Miz and Zack Ryder, which I can only assume was supposed to be a continuation of the Team Johnny vs team Teddy match at Wrestlemania. Since Team Johnny won when the Miz pinned Ryder. There wasn't much change in this match either, Ryder continues to fail and Miz picks up another win. Too bad for Ryder, just when his career was starting to shed the goofball image.

Raw closed with John Cena finally coming out to address his loss to The Rock.  He told us that now he considers the Rock a champion. (Huh? His multiple title runs didn't clue you in on that John?) And he also told us that he wasn't going to make any excuses and he was taking his loss like a man. He then invited Rock out to the ring so he could shake his hand personally.

This is where JR would say "Business is about to pick up!" because we were all treated with the surprise return of, none other than former champion and former UFC champion, Brock Lesnar. Now I'll admit, I was as giddy as a little kid at this point, I was so excited to see Brock come back and breath some life into the show, I can only hope Paul Heyman comes back to manage him like last time. But rather than try to explain what happened, I'll just show you. Enjoy! 

Wrestlemania 28

Welcome to Jabroni Jabber, I promise as time goes on I’m going to decorate things up a bit around here but for right now I want to focus on what I have to get off my chest. Now before I start I’m sure as you read this some of you will say, “Who the hell is this guy and why should his opinion matter?” Well to be honest maybe it shouldn’t. Who cares about my opinion right? But just to be on the safe side I’ll tell you that I grew up watching WWF wrestling as a kid back in the 80’s. (GASP he said WWF not WWE) Every Sunday morning I would start the tape in the VCR that had recorded the previous nights “Saturday Night’s Main Event” and I would watch my hero’s; Jake Roberts, Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage and yes Hulk Hogan. Eventually I grew out of wrestling only to rediscover my love for it in the early 90’s while I was in high school which eventually led to me becoming a professional wrestler when I was in my early 20’s. I’m in my mid-30’s now, retired from the ring as a husband and father but I still love to watch wrestling. Not just because I know “the business”, but because I’m still a fan and I still believe in hero’s.


Now, last night was April first and the long awaited Wrestlemania 28 from beautiful Miami, FL. Right out of the gate I was pissed off. I grew up worshipping the WWF tag team division and idolized guys like the Hart Foundation, The British Bulldogs, Demolition, The Legion of Doom, you know ….. tag teams, REAL ones. In the current incarnation of the WWE those days are dead. The current tag team champions, Primo and Epico (Who? Who the hell are these guys and why should I care?), defended their titles successfully against 2 other teams in a 3 way dance, but the match wasn’t even on the pay-per-view. It was streamed over the internet via the WWE’s website before the show even went on the air. It’s a disgrace to those storied and coveted title belts.


Next, Wrestlemania goes on the air and to kick things off is a World title match between Daniel Bryan and Sheamus. Now I was hoping for this to be one of those famous “show stealer” matches that people end up talking about for years. Well if they do it’ll be a short conversation. The bell rang, Bryan got kicked in the face and pinned. Sheamus became the new champion in 18 seconds officially.


Next up was Kane and Randy Orton. I’ll be honest I didn’t pay attention much in this match because the interest just wasn’t there. These two guys just shouldn’t be booked together, they work nothing like each other in the ring and it’s just boring. Is anyone else sick of seeing the same old act from Randy Orton? You know where he hits a power slam off the ropes, he then “goes to that place” where he pounds on the mat with his forearms a few times to warn his opponent about whats coming next. And then he goes for the RKO which his opponent blocks. Yawn, get a new act junior. Oh yeah by the way, Kane won the match with a chokeslam off the top rope.


Then we came to the Intercontinental Title match between the champion, Cody Rhodes, and the challenger The Big Show. For weeks before this match Cody made fun of Show revealing that he’s pretty much never won a match at Wrestlemania. In fact out of the 9 Wrestlemanias Show has been in, he’s only won 3 times and he wasn’t the guy to get the pinfall in those wins. This match went as it should have. Cody scoring a few successful offessive moves to make it interesting, but in the end it was a David and Goliath match where Goliath coldcocks David and leaves with his Intercontinental championship.


Next was where Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos defeated Beth Phoenix and Eve Torres. That’s all the attention I’m giving to that match because the Divas are a disgrace to pro wrestling and just a joke in general.


Now we come to the first of our 3 main events. Triple H versus the Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match, with special referee Shawn Michaels. Shawn didn’t need to be there at all, this match was big enough without the retired legend. He and his gray facial hair could have watched from home and tweeted from the comfort of his couch which he is fond of doing these days. Anyway this match was kind of a let-down but still entertaining as hell. There were several moments where I cringed at what these two guys were putting themselves through, Triple H shed the blood and Taker had the welts on his back to prove it, (those chair shots were brutal). In the end Triple H just could not get Taker to stay down and Taker finished him off with a tombstone piledriver to extend the epic winstreak to 20-0. Will it truly be the end of an era as it was billed? Was this the Undertakers last match? I guess we won’t know until he mysteriously appears some night on RAW in 6 months or so like he’s been doing the last few years.


Then we had the big 12 man tag team match to determine who was going to be the general manager of Smackdown and RAW. John Laurinaitis, or Teddy Long. Team Johnny got the win here because quite frankly his team had all the talent. Team Teddy was basically mid-carders and one has-been.


Next was the WWE title match between the champion CM Punk and his new nemesis Chris Jericho. I haven’t been impressed with the lead in to this match. Jericho is out making it personal and “revealing” things about Punk’s family. Jericho then steals Punk’s schtick by wearing almost the same ring attire and also calling himself the “best in the world”. All in all the match itself wasn’t bad, I really enjoyed that they utilized traditional wrestling holds and made it an actual “wrestling match”. Which ended in a submission when CM Punk locked Jericho into his anaconda vise to retain the title.


Finally we come to the big match, the one that has been building for the past two years. John Cena versus The Rock. Both superstars had huge entrances. The Rocks was done by Flo Rida and Cena had who I thought was Eminem at first but then I realized that Eminem has more meat on his bones. And talent.
This was your typical back and forth match that could have happened at any time in 1999 when The Rock was relevant. But it ended when Cena got cocky and went to copy the Rock’s signature move “The People’s Elbow”, and Rocky jumped up and hit Cena with his finisher, “Rock Bottom.” Which I might add, Cena had already kicked out of 2 or 3 Rock Bottom’s previously in the match but whatever. Anyway, The Rock wins and his hometown Miami fans didn’t riot.


Overall it was a decent Wrestlemania, not outstanding by any means but I also didn’t feel cheated. I'm still not a fan out outdoor venues because the sound goes straight up, most times you can't tell if the audience is interested or even there. But that's not going to stop me from getting tickets to next years show at Met Life stadium in NY/NJ! I'll finally be able to say those words I've waited the vast majority of my life to say. "I'm going to Wrestlemania!"