What the hell, fried chicken!

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If you’ll remember, last week was a Beat the Clock challenge, with the winner getting the #1 contender spot against Undertaker. The story is that Rey set the winning time, but in the last match, Batista had his opponent beat with time to spare. Just as the ref was counting 1-2-3, Rey pulls him out of the ring at 2. Instead of disqualifying Rey on the spot and awarding the match to Batista, the ref watched as time expired, announced Batista had not beaten the clock, and Rey wins the challenge. The illogic here astounds me, as not only is this a clear DQ win for Dave, but it’s also an amazingly heel thing for Rey to do. It’s a good way to confuse the fans and get them to turn on a character whose believability in the ring against gorilla-sized wrestlers like Batista is already pretty crummy.

Anyway, the show ended with Vickie Guererro throwing the decision out and announcing a #1 contender’s match this week to clear up the controversy. Fair enough, I guess. Can’t complain about a match being set up.

But this week, Batista comes out and says that Vickie’s decision was a good one, but sadly, she’s not the general manager, and Teddy Long overruled her. That means the match is off, and Rey keeps his spot. Gosh, way to make that little development entirely pointless.

But there’s more! Rey comes out and feebly attempts to justify his chickenshit actions by saying it’s payback for one of the many bastardly things Batista did to him in the past, but he’ll gladly put his #1 contendership on the line in a match later tonight. So now the match is back on, which…makes that whole spiel about Teddy Long overruling the match…entirely pointless. The show has now just deliberately wasted about fifteen minutes of my time.

Another thing that slays me about Rey Mysterio’s speech here is that he flat-out says that Batista is afraid of him. “What, you scared of me, big man? You scared to face me one-on-one?” To which Batista starts inviting Rey to step right into the ring. At no point in this entire feud has it seemed like Batista has even remotely sweated facing Rey, and in fact has seemed desperately eager to crush the little twerp like a Dixie cup. Afraid of Rey? The guy shits bigger than Rey.

***

CM Punk’s segment where he converts a “fan” to the Straight-Edge lifestyle went on way too long, and it just doesn’t interest me. What’s funny is that I get that he’s supposed to be a heel with his holier-than-thou, I’m-better-than-you attitude, but there’s something about it that feels weird in execution. The guy’s whole gimmick is that he’s against drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, and how are you really supposed to boo that? The implication here is that he’s a Bad Man for wanting you to stay away from cigarettes and drugs, and anyone who opposes him is a de facto defender of substance abuse. It’s bound to confuse fans. Can you imagine the conflicting input a kid has upon seeing this? CM Punk is a bad guy telling you to stay away from drugs. Isn’t the implied message there to toke up and stick it to the man?

That’s probably why Punk’s puritanical anti-drug message is so radical and all-encompassing. The guy’s started to preach out against just about everything, even non-prescription drugs. I think the funniest this ever got was at Thanksgiving when he called everyone weak for overeating and then “popping some antacids,” as if that were some grave Straight-Edge violation. Is that really in the Straight-Edge ethos? One Tums and you’re out of the club? Admittedly, I don’t know much about being Straight-Edge, but I don’t imagine it’s against the spirit of Edginess to treat your fucking acid reflux or to use Visine every once in a while.

***

Is it just me, or has Kane wrestled virtually the same match since about 1992?

***

It’s a very bad thing when every single week I’m surprised to remember that Michelle McCool is the Divas Champion. This is going to sound weird, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman so hot, and yet so sexually uninteresting. How does that even happen? Really makes you pine for the days when Torrie Wilson was the worst actress employed by the company.

Someone remind me why Layla has a job if this is what she calls wrestling.

The Piggie James angle is so abysmally and sadly stupid that I think most people are just choosing to quietly ignore it until it goes away.

***

The night ends with Taker interrupting the #1 Contender’s match and using his dark powers of teleportation to murder Rey and Batista in the ring, apparently setting up a triple threat at the Royal Rumble, which makes the last two weeks of storyline…yes, entirely pointless.

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The new year’s started off on the wrong foot for poor ol’ me, but luckily, a crippling foot injury isn’t much of a deterrent to watching awful movies and playing some crappy games. My trusty and busty nurse has been tending my wounds and giving my bone special attention, and in the meantime I’m getting ready for this year’s new batch of reviews!

And there’s a lot of ‘em. I needed to write them all down just to keep them straight in my head!

Captain America & Captain America 2: Death Too Soon – I heard about some other poser movie based on Captain America, but when you’re looking for a real American hero who can beat the enemies of truth, justice, and democracy into every shade of red, white, and blue, just look for Brown. Reb Brown! Yes, Reb starred in two made for TV Captain America flicks that kept to the core of Cap’s character, like his panel van and his super-motorcycle, while discarding all of that Nazi-punching and shield-tossing that bogged the comics down.

Party Mania! – The Blagho is a nexus of the multiverse, a pan-dimensional vortex of hypertime where realities shift and blend. Marvel as we peer into one of these Elseworlds, a strange world where a female Spoony gets together her girlfriends to review a VHS board game far more vile, shocking, and evil than any Nightmare could conjure! It’s Party Mania, a game about doing your chores and getting your clothes, nails, jewelry, hair, and makeup just right so one of the too cute boys at the party will totally crush on you! Let’s go to the mall!

Lords of Magick – Zounds and forsoothe! ‘Tis truly one of the greatest sword-and-sorcery tales ever filmed! And I, your humble bard and storyteller, will spin this tale for thee anew! Beware the sacrilege!

Hudson Hawk (Movie/NES) – It was one of the most notoriously bad celebrity vanity vehicles ever made! Thrill as Bruce Willis (lead singer of Bruno) makes a madcap caper comedy about a swingin’, singin’ cat burglar embroiled in Illuminati conspiracy theories and cracking the Da Vinci Codex. Oh, but what could be worse than this infamous box office bomb? The NES game based on it, of course! I’m sure there are enough Spoony clones to go around to review all of this nonsense.

Star Trek: Klingon REVISITED – Remember when I could only take the Power Klingon language course, and I couldn’t get the actual game to work? Well now the review can be completed! The game works, and it’s time to heat up the holodeck for a journey to Kronos. How much shame could I possibly bring to my house? I paid attention to the Rosetta Stone lessons…

Ripper – And don’t forget the cyberpunk murder mystery! The series continues soon! Do you know whodunnit yet?

SWAT 4: Mission #13 – The final mission of the game awaits. Will Lieutenant Spoony recover from his foot injury and repeated retinal burns from staring at flashbangs? Will he continue on to battle the Stetchkov Syndicate? Or will someone else get in his way?

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