Segunda Caida Gets an Incomplete: The Wrestling What I Watched: Week of 4/27/09

Potential new weekly feature's debut canceled due to inexplicable malfunction of Blogger's autosave feature and the author's computer turning against him in his hour of need. Film at never.

It has been a million years since I wrote something for this blog. I mean, I have a couple of incomplete pieces here and there, but haven't actually finished anything to my satisfaction. It is largely a product of poor task management skills. I take on a lot of projects at once, and slows my progress on all of them as my brain flits about from one thing to another rather inefficiently. Anyway, I am trying to streamline my life these days, so to that end, I am going to try this little experiment where I take all my wrestling watching/reviewing projects, throw in the stuff I watched of my own accord, and dump it all into one weekly report. This is the wrestling I watched last week:

WWE TV

I need to sit down and figure out what keeps overriding SmackDown on my DVR, as it hasn't taped the last few weeks. I mean, only other thing I watch on Fridays is Monk, and that's not even in that timeslot. I don't get it. Oh well. There's still Raw and ECW to potentially entertain me.

I am mildly distraught over the Santina Marella gimmick. If there's one thing I learned from The Boogeyman, it's that the quickest way to destroy the eficacy of a comedy act is to take one gag from the routinr and make it the only gag. I laughed really, really hard at The Boogeyman's first TV promo, when he just sort of randomly pulled out a clock while reciting a nursery rhyme, and then he smashed it over his head before saying his catchphrase. It was funny because it was surreal and unexpected. So when they made it a recurring part of his act, it wasn't funny anymore. He added the worms and Little Boogeyman. He wasn't getting a lot of new material for the most part. He stayed over, but the act wasn't as potent as it could have been. Santino is a really funny guy, and he has had better luck in this regard. And I didn't see WrestleMania yet, but I did watch Raw the next night, and I laughed at Santina. Laughed at him using the old Billy & Chuck theme, laughed at his jokes, laughed at his interactions with Beth. But the big laugh in this match came from the Bella twins and Hornswoggle. Santina becomes an afterthought. The joke doesn't feel fresh or interesting anymore, and while Santino is a capable enough worker, it's not like he is Cassandro or Pimpi. Not a guy who I will be sold on because of his work alone. It feels like there are only so many places this can go to keep me interested. Extended courtship by The Great Khali could have been amusing, but they blew that wad already. A feud with Goldust, maybe. A team with Goldust, maybe. Beth Phoenix breaking up with Santino, coming out of the closet, and bringing in her new "girlfriend", Pimpinela Escarlata. Maybe Polvo de Estrellas if you're willing to settle. Beyond that, it's a joke with a pretty limited shelf life, and it seems like a waste of Santino's comic talents.

I'm probably not saying anything you don't already know, but they did quite the job of setting up MVP as a serious main event threat in the opening interview, and then did an even better job of throwing that all away by having him fall into a black hole so Shane could goof around for a while. Hey, remember when Shane was the McMahon who was actually kind of fun to watch in the ring? Him standing in the crowd triumphantly with his kendo stick at the end made me think of Tommy Dreamer, and Shane McMahon as Tommy Dreamer is really inappropriate and really weirdly appropriate at the same time somehow.

I made a really long post back in 'o7 at the DVDVR forums about how I expected the impending boom to go down and who I expected to become major players in it. It is 2009, and looking back, about 90% of what I wrote ended up being dead wrong. Still, it's nice to see I accurately called The Miz as an ideal Cena foe. Well, not even my call. Actually Dukes' call which I seconded. But still. I know conventional wisdom is that Cena is a guy who works best against dominant super heavyweights. But fuck conventional wisdom. I wanna see this.

ECW was a fine show this week. I watch Christian's opening promo and I am still stunned that this is the same guy who used the "what's the capital of Thailand" joke during a World Title feud with Monty Brown. Guy who's previous main event babyface run involved mocking Jeff Jarrett's fashion sense in promos now feels like he is totally at home at the top of the card. This almost feels like a Rocky Maivia-to-The Rock level turnaround. Christian actually seems dignified. His jokes actually fit. Pointing out that he knows Jack Swagger will interupt his promo feels like a relevant diss, and it's made all the better when Tommy Dreamer subverts it by coming out first. Yes, Tommy Dreamer actually made something better. Their match was rock-solid, too. I mean, pretty clearly a Christian carryjob, but Tommy didn't embarass himself, and the match held together pretty well.