Time to shoot on the granddaddy of them all. This time Birdsong sits in and gives his obviously pro-Hulk Hogan rhetoric on this year’s Wrestlemania. (Actually, that’s not true. This is the first time I’ve read something of his for more than 5 minutes were the big yellow-and-red cheese isn’t mentioned, and that’s not Captain Marvel either.)

Anyway, here’s the opening question for the roundtable: will Floyd Mayweather’s involvement in Wrestlemania help WWE recoup his $20 million price tag?

Jonathan Birdsong: Buyrates go up in general when it comes to Wrestlemania. In theory this is a good card, so depending on the performances I imagine DVD sales of this show will be up too. It has the potential to be GREAT, but in the same breath it also has the potential to be mediocre. There’s nobody from the International scene (Japan/Mexico) wrestling on the card, so we’re not really seeing anything new here. $20 mil, recoup…smells like Jay Leno and Karl Malone in WCW all-over again. There will be budget-cuts come Summer Slam!

The Russ: I’m not sure how much money Donald Trump made last year, but did he really do anything to help sell the show besides show up on video every so often on Raw? They didn’t even do anything on The Apprentice with any cross-promotion. At least Mayweather is heavily involved in doing appearances and physically getting involved on Raw, and his name gets a lot of run on the sports talk shows, which is WWE’s target demographic. But, you’re right… Wrestlemania is traditionally the end of WWE’s fiscal year, and April is generally when people get released. If they don’t do some Mike Tyson-like numbers, I would bet that a lot of folks will get whacked next month and they will quite rightly point the finger at this particular business decision.

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Results from gerweck.net

Last night was a good night to go to bed early and catch up on your daylight savings sleep. The first four matches were decent to very good, but beyond that, it was a great big heaping pile of suck. Any time you involve dead aquatic creatures in a match and beat people with them, you know that something is terribly wrong.

A nice video package opened the show telling us about the sacrifices that TNA wrestlers make in the ring to entertain the fans and achieve their goals. Yeah, I guess that making $1000 an appearance, a hotel room, a rental car, and getting free reign around Universal Studios twice a month doesn’t play into it… they make this sacrifice ONLY to entertain us.

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There’s not too many times in my life that I would start writing something where I said, “I was crapping my guts out this week.” So, I won’t. Instead:

I would have gotten the boys together for an official roundtable for this show, but I was crapping my guts out this week. There.

Anyway, enough body function humor. I don’t want to steal all of TNA’s gimmicks for this Sunday. The best part about this review is that TNA’s web site isn’t even up-to-date at 9:48 am EST for three matches that were supposed to be added from last night’s Impact, which I find to be very bush-league for a company that’s supposed to be your WWE alternative. I mean, Shane-O-Mac gets his dot-com boys on the job THE NIGHT OF THE SHOW.

So, I will cover both the official and rumored matches and see if I can’t get a recap of last night’s show to get you all the tripe that they’re going to be serving down south this weekend (which I guess is a delicacy to them, so to each his own).

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It looks like Corey and I split this one down the middle for 5 out of 6 each. I really should have guessed the obvious finish to the Elimination Chamber match to go for the perfect 6, but for some reason I just though that was too obvious a choice. He made a good point though about how Hunter has been quietly out of the title picture now for a couple of years and giving him the belt would be a good reward for being the company man. He also apparently has the inside track on the Raw main event at Wrestlemania, as it’s being said that it will be a Triple Threat Match with Hunter, Cena, and Orton.

However, Corey said that Orton would win by DQ. He retained the title, but John Cena won that one, and the Legend Killer lives (barely) to fight another day.

I had some pretty low expectations for this show given Rey Mysterio’s injury, the Smackdown elimination chamber looking pretty lousy on paper, and the given that there would be no real outcome to the WWE title match. I guess then if my expectations were so low, I was pleasantly surprised…

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Corey Henson and I sat down this week to put down some thoughts about Sunday’s No Way Out PPV, but first some news from WWE.com:

Rey Mysterio’s quest to regain the World Championship may have suffered a severe setback in Santiago, Chile, on Wednesday night. The injury occurred during Wednesday’s live event at Arena Santiago, where Mysterio teamed with Kane against Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins. During the tag contest, Rey suffered an apparent injury to his right arm – specifically his bicep. Clearly in pain, the Master of the 619 gutted it out and finished the match, then was quickly examined by WWE athletic trainer Jason Crivello upon leaving the ring.

Mysterio flew back to the United States late Wednesday night, and is currently in Gulf Breeze, Fla., waiting to meet with world-renowned surgeon Dr. James Andrews, who will determine the extent of the injury. Regardless of Dr. Andrews’ findings, Mysterio has his heart set on competing this Sunday night at No Way Out, where he is scheduled to face Edge for the World Championship.

This also from Pro Wrestling Insider:

He hasn’t had an MRI done. His mentality right now is that at all costs, he does not want to miss Wrestlemania, so if surgery is recommended, he’s going to have a major decision to make. We won’t know about Sunday’s PPV until after he sees Andrews and they determine the severity of the injury. They could have him show up and do an injury angle because there are no TV’s left before No Way Out, where he was scheduled to face Edge for the World title. Surgery would put him out around six months.

Bad luck for Rey Rey, as this would be the second straight Wrestlemania he’s missed since winning the World Championship there in 2006. Even if he tries to gut it out on Sunday, he’s not going to be able to hit some of his usual high spots, like the 619, so I can’t imagine he will do himself much good by trying to go. It seemed like with Edge and John Cena’s returns over the winter that the hard luck injury stories of last year were over, but they just keep going it seems…

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From Gerweck.net:

“It’s being reported that TNA has only sold about 1600 tickets for the Against All Odds ppv tonight, which is in a 2500-3500 seat arena. Apparently WWE had only drew about 1000 paid when they tried running the same venue–something TNA should’ve taken note of. Apparently TNA has instituted a buy two tickets, get one free sale at the box office, and has also been giving away free tickets to local businesses.”

Nothing communicates excitement about a show like papering the audience…

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Hopefully I can get on the ball here soon and get the rest of the crew back in here before Wrestlemania for one of these, but in the meantime, check out the crap that TNA’s gonna try and sell you this weekend. 

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…hoping that Birdsong will hook me up with his employee discount so I can see Hornswoggle in a whole new way.

Or maybe not. Is it really worth $50 to get some of these PPVs in HD? Here’s the recap of the last couple of months to see why not (or why):

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I’ve missed recapping the last two PPVs, and since my link to Gerweck for TNA Genesis died, I figured I would be better served just recapping my recap that never was for the past month.

TNA Genesis (11.11.07): I think the funniest thing about this pay-per-view is that half the guys on the poster there weren’t on the show. I count only Abyss, AJ Styles, and JOE’S GONNA KILL YOU as the three that actually appeared on the show. I guess it would have just looked stupid to have seven different poses from Kurt Angle instead, considering how much the shows are built around the drunken pill-popper.

Seriously, Angle’s DUI arrest in September proves that he is still not okay, he is still an addict, and that he needs help. He quit WWE because he didn’t like the schedule and needed some time away from the ring, but then he showed up in TNA about a week later. Dude needs to stop before something stops him.

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Results from gerweck.net 

Doesn’t Candice Michelle look like friggin’ plastic in that picture? 

I actually have grown to like the concept of this pay-per-view over the years, and this used to be the only way you could see guys from different brands working with each other on the same show. I guess there’s still some debate as to whether or not the voting is rigged or not, but it’s a night of mindless fun that doesn’t really have an effect on the overall course of storylines and such, so I guess you either like it or you don’t. I’d like to see them utilize that gimmick on the weekly shows too.

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Results from Gerweck.net

TNA went on the road again for their WrestleMania event of the year. Meh.

In other news, some local indy wrestling personalities threatened to sue me last week for some statements I made on a local wrestling hotline and web site. After everything was settled, I agreed to discontinue appearing on that hotline and web site and pretty much discontinue my involvement with the local independent wrestling scene.

People love it when you mock WWE and TNA, because it doesn’t directly affect them. When you turn that same attention toward the people in your own community, they can’t take the heat. That’s about all I’ll say on the matter.

I’m actually glad. When I wrote that piece on Chris Benoit earlier in the year, I seriously considered ignoring pro wrestling, because the business is dirty, cutthroat, and it chews up people and spits them out. Why I reconsidered… I don’t know. I guess it was just weird to stop paying attention. I do know that I pay less attention than I used to, and I really only have time to read results and that’s about it.

So, anyway, sorry about the delay in getting this up from last week. I was just kind of absorbed in some other endeavors.

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Results from Gerweck.net 

John Cena’s hurt, so we get a new champion. Meanwhile, Randy Orton has to wash his hands after handling bird poop in that picture.

The show opened with Vince McMahon and his part-time girlfriend William Regal headed to the ring. McMahon immediately crowned Randy Orton as the new WWE Champion while the crowd chanted “Y2J” in a vote of confidence. Orton went to the ring to select a challenger, but Triple H interrupted instead. He wanted a title match, Vince gave in, and that match started the show (!?!?)

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Results from Gerweck.net

By all reports, this was a pretty bad show. We shall see…

ECW World Champion CM Punk retained over Elijah Burke. This was a slow-to-decent opener, but it again shows what a third-rate brand the company believes them to be. The only match ECW gets on any show is the title match, and even then, it’s never really that “extreme”, and it’s never contested at the end of the show with the other major titles. I know that Jim Ross keeps saying over on his blog that we’ll never see the “old” ECW again, but the problem is that very few people are interested in this “new” ECW they’re trying to foist upon us. No one in the crowd seemed interested in this match, and that’s pretty sad considering CM Punk is fairly over with the fans. Punk won with a rolling cradle.

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Results from Gerweck.net 

Did you know that TNA had a show last week? Neither did I…

Pacman Jones & Ron Killings defeated Kurt Angle & Sting to become TNA World Tag Team Champions in the first of Kurt Angle’s three title defenses. Pacman didn’t wrestle, naturally, but he did tag out at the beginning and got the winning pin. Karen Angle slapped Sting but pretended that he slapped her instead. Angle got ticked and hit the Angle Slam on Sting, which allowed Pacman to get the win. Eh, I guess it’s not like the David Arquette episode, but it seemed like a letdown for all the stock they’ve put into Pacman Jones. They promised him a belt too. Their loss.

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I’ve had this DVD for a while, but because we were birthing babies last week and this week, I had to put it on the back burner. 

I reviewed this show after it occurred live in July. After watching it again on DVD, most of what I said still holds true. Matt Hardy/MVP was an excellent opening match. The Women’s Title match was actually longer than I thought (but still good). Rhodes vs. Orton was actually pretty good given that the old man was working on a bum leg. Cena vs. Lashley was a great match that was limited by the fact that you couldn’t get emotionally invested in a feud built around respect. It might sound good and make for happy endings, but you need a disturbance in there to really get people to care about the feud.

My main issue with this release are the lousy extras that come with it. You basically get two promos, and that’s it. One extra is the John Cena/Bobby Lashley contract signing from Raw where King Booker and Mr. Kennedy ran in. The other extra is Edge’s Mardi Gras celebration on Smackdown before he had to surrender the World Championship. Couldn’t we have gotten a match or two instead? What about the battle royal where the Great Khali won the title? What about the promo where Edge actually had to surrender the title? What about the tag match that ensued from the Raw contract signing? What about anything from ECW? Whoever is choosing these extras fell asleep at the wheel for this release.

The DVD is okay if you’re just expecting a decent wrestling show, but that’s about all you’ll get out of it.